


The Holocaust Piano

by 7veilsphaedra



Category: Ai no Kusabi
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:41:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 76,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25748317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7veilsphaedra/pseuds/7veilsphaedra
Summary: Post-AnK universe. A rare artifact at the shop of Raoul Am's favourite dealer reveals unusual, possibly sinister powers which may have unleashed destruction on other colonies.
Relationships: Raoul Am/Katze
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	1. Trojan Horse

**Author's Note:**

> Although this novel takes place in the Ai no Kusabi universe, it focuses on the science fiction, espionage thriller, political/social structure and yaoi romance as opposed to the BDSM, sexual slavery and rape which goes hand-in-hand with so many of the works which take place in this universe. That said, it is based on Ai no Kusabi, so it isn't possible to get away entirely from those horrors.

It was the finest instrument ever to arrive through the gauntlet of space transport. Brushing his thigh-length blue braid behind him, Hilarion Fyss pulled out the padded bench and gestured an invitation to be seated if he so desired to Amoi’s First Blondie.

“I called the moment it arrived, sir.”

Raoul Am circled the pianoforte first in long graceful strides like a lion stalking prey, almost pouncing upon it to lift the lid and examine the works. Next to the magnificent instrument, ordinary men would appear puny and powerless, but its grandeur met and matched his own.

“Beyond the usual standard indeed,” his cultured purr turned Hilarion’s understatement into a masterpiece of irony. The instrument’s surface was flawless, french-polished without a nick or scratch anywhere; its black mirror reflected Raoul’s exquisite face without a wobble of distortion. The harp sat upon a solid sounding board unmarred by splits or warps, something which had never happened before in Amoi’s long history of interplanetary transports. All the mechanisms were intact; the hammers were well-felted; the damper and other pedals functioned without a hitch or click; and the action was perfection itself, with a responsiveness that evoked running water on the light strokes and ocean breakers on the thunderous chords.

A cadenza rippled under Raoul’s fingers, confirming that its resonance was more intense and of clearer, finer quality than had been heard on the planet, possibly since its colonization. He couldn’t help but inhale a hiss of appreciation.

“Does it also sound to you like a woman singing?” The timbre was incomparable, but there were familiar elements.

“Seven very faint octaval and fifth overtones of a female voice, yes, culminating upon a third. Silvery on the high notes. Warm on the low. Is it not astonishing?”

Astonishing, indeed, this most ethereal of voices, so unlike Jupiter’s metallic drone.

“As you can see from the extended range,” the Sapphire continued, “it is a post-21st century model constructed after hearing had evolved to register new frequencies. Yet the progression is still octaval and based on tones and semi-tones.”

“Yes, the lack of quattrotonal keys would place it–” Raoul considered, “toward the beginning of the 22nd century, wouldn’t you agree?—When Terraforming in alien systems was still in its infancy. A legacy from our ancestors?”

“Unless it was constructed later with the intent to incorporate such a throwback.”

“Raoul stroked his gloved finger over the maker’s mark, strange cursive lettering inset in gleaming metal on the instrument’s lid. “Yes, I see what you mean. This script is unfamiliar to me.”

“Although it bears remarkable similarities with-” Hilarion hesitated, unsure whether his conjectures would be welcomed or sound ridiculous, “Sanskrit or, perhaps, ancient Arabic. Consider the placement of this horizontal line throughout, and the play of curving lines and dashes above and below. Perhaps it bears a similar decryption key?”

“Hmm.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to match the lettering in the Tanaguran databases or in my private reference library.”

A challenge! Raoul was too well-schooled to allow the excitement which leapt inside him to display itself across his features. Except for an added intensity in his clear, green eyes, he projected the same imperturbable tranquility. Hilarion had to be well acquainted by this time with the biotechnologist’s fascinations; Raoul knew he was one of the Blue’s best customers. He raised his hand in a gesture of silence, taking note of the excited flush on the art dealer’s ivory skin and fine features.

“Oh!” A quick shadow passed over his face.

Raoul thought it best to probe further. “Your problem with this is-?”

“You and I are the only people on Amoi who know.”

“Such discretion. While I commend you for it, Fyss, I am curious why you chose to circumvent Customs.”

“It carries ... unique biologicals.”

“And since you are aware of the laws governing contraband biologicals, you must also understand the consequences should strange proteins be introduced to our planetary genetics without moniters and controls?”

“Precisely. Which is why I chose to defer to your expertise and authority, Lord Am. My specialization does not encompass bioengineering sufficiently to render judgment upon the instrument’s fate---although, in my defence, it far surpasses that of our typical Onyx Customs Officer.”

Raoul thought about the situation. The Blue Elite was right about the Black Elite. He shuddered to think of what some of those philistines might do to such an instrument. The question was whether Jupiter was using the piano to test Raoul’s loyalty.

Hilarion Fyss was the best procurer of artifacts and antiquities on Amoi because his interests extended beyond the monetary value of his products. The showroom was lined with the very best paintings, objets, and rare manuscripts protected in their own archival containment fields. His appreciation of aesthetics and history was inspirational, and his knowledge base—well, Raoul would freely admit to admiring the purity and refinement of Hilarion’s intellect. Such clarity of thought within his field of specialization was positively seductive; he must’ve found the idea of tampering with such a beautiful artifact agonizing.

“Let’s hear the list.”

“Sir?”

“The biologicals, what are they?

“Right. I extracted microscopic samples of wood from beneath the finish, workings and sounding-board and, aside from a few easily sterilized surface contaminants, the samples were inert, as were the fibres within the felts. I have the results on file for your perusal.”

“As expected.” Raoul frowned at the cover of the piano stool, “but this is not a synthetic polymer.”

“No, it is hide, the byproduct of an unknown animal.” Hilarion smoothed the sleeves of his golden brocade robe. “well-tanned, however. Very well-tanned.”

“Yes, but it isn’t critical to the structural integrity of the pianoforte. We could easily remove and incinerate this cover. Replace it with”—deep breath—“let’s say, a native black _peau de soie.”_

“Of course, sir,” but his face still conveyed turmoil.

“Tell me you haven’t allowed leather-upholstered antiquities to slip past customs, Fyss.”

“No, it isn’t that.”

“Explain,” Raoul commanded.

“It appears there’s another unknown biological inside the instrument, within the very strings.”

“Really? That is unorthodox. I thought intestines and sinews had not been used for centuries, and never in pianofortes. One firm strike and--” he snapped his fingers in a show of clipped finality. “That, and the hosts of equally viable, if not better alternatives.”

“We couldn’t get a close look at the substance since it is encased in a strange alloy which is nearly impossible to scan but, no, it doesn’t appear to be sinew or animal tissue.”

“Cellulose?”

“A form of silk is my guess. Spider silk. Caterpillar silk.”

“And laser-incineration would damage the wire. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I may have already compromised the integrity of the G-sharp minus-6 wire while experimenting with lasers, sir. Nor do acids appear to have any effect.”

“I see. And so far as the replacement of these strings with an acceptable alternative is concerned–?”

Hilarion sighed. “It could be done, of course, but not without completely altering the piece and possibly damaging it beyond repair. Either way, the quality would suffer. Notice how the wires are fastened so that, to remove them, the pins would also have to be removed, which would render them worthless-”

“Because once they are loosened in this sounding board, they cannot be made to fit again. Yes, yes, I see the dilemna.” To keep the pianoforte in its present near-perfect condition, Raoul would have to go against Jupiter’s directives and place the genetic purity of Amoi at risk.

The risk was almost infinitesimal: the biologicals were most likely inert and, even if they weren’t, the chances of their release into the genetic base with all its incumbent safeguards were next to impossible. Even so, it stood at cross-purposes with Jupiter’s masterplan for Amoi and offended Raoul’s sense of duty.

Music and musical instruments were the nearest he had ever allowed himself to brush with passion. His interest in sound began indifferently by observing the effects of patterned sound on the atomic structure of the Amoian genome. When the results showed changes—highly unpredictable, volatile reactions—his interest acquired fervor.

After the death of his friend, Iason, it consumed him, tearing his attention away from the spasms which now constricted around his heart, the heart which was supposed to have been engineered to not feel, and now failed him by feeling with a harrowing vengeance. Raoul threw his shoulders back defiantly; feelings were to be sublimated.

For a long time, his mandatory attendance at Tanagura’s main political functions had bored him stiff. Their only amusement lay in observing how transparent the posturing and strategems of the various flunkies were, not to mention their thoughts, habits and secret appetites. He could even trace by memory the neural pathways these sparked, in thirty-six different languages, including binary code—a trick to pass the time while awaiting the most courteous and opportune moment to leave. He lacked Iason’s lazy ease with officials of the Federation, but feigned it well.

As for pet-shows, he could now barely contain his revulsion. Prior to the catastrophe at Dana Bahn, Raoul’s disdain for pets was rooted in boredom. Now he held their unbridled carnality, the torpor of their minds and the overwheening egos directly responsible for Ceres’ allure over Iason.

Oddly enough, this contempt no longer extended to the Mongrel, Riki, a reaction which shocked him beyond the pall. After Jupiter’s initial storm, he had expected every feeling, every physical sensation provoked by memories and thoughts of the dead pet to emerge from some sort of a black, bubbling tar-pit of ... well, of hatred. He had not expected sympathy. He certainly never expected to understand, to experience resonance, like a fine harmonic chord. It was ridiculous. He was ridiculous: Raoul the Ridiculous, tormented with a desire he had forcefully transmuted into friendship for the dead Iason Mink, and a subversive admiration for his rebellious Mongrel lover, Riki the Dark. It was too much to be borne!

With a sweep of his arm, Raoul knocked out the pin which supported the pianoforte’s lid. The dischord which resounded as it fell closed thrummed throughout the showroom for two full minutes.

This revealed Hilarion’s interesting reaction in the reflection of a display case. Behind him, the art dealer seemed to be hyperventilating with concern for the instrument’s condition, not to mention panic over its possible siezure and destruction. Perhaps this wasn’t a trap after all.

Raoul turned back, examining the other man’s face with renewed interest. He instantly formed a new strategy.

“Lead me to your terminal. I’ve decided to place my call.” The antiquarian’s resigned look amused him. “Come now, Hilarion, you are too experienced to succumb to petty dejection. I am the senior biotechnologist for Amoi and Jupiter. What did you expect when you sought my patronage?”

“I’ve always placed my trust with confidence in the First Blondie.” The other man replied mechanically, his eyes expressionless.

“I take it Lord Mink often requested measures which bypassed official channels.”

Hilarion bowed his head.

“Iason was a veritable Pandora’s Box of surprises,” Raoul logged onto the communication program and keyed the connection codes for an apartment in Midas, “You will meet one of them right now.”

He hit the enter key, and the image on the screen fluctuated and shifted to the face of a pale, red-haired Mongrel in his early twenties with startlingly beautiful almond eyes and a scar that ran down his cheek along the length of his jaw.

To say the Mongrel looked gobsmacked was putting it mildly. When it finally registered that his caller was none other than the new First Blondie, Lord Raoul Am, himself, he nearly leapt out of his skin with fright. The cigarette dangling from his stunned lips fell into his coffee cup with a little splash. Then he jumped back as though stung, knocking over his chair, and slopping the coffee across the front of his turtleneck. Lastly, he tangled his feet in the chair legs, tripped and fell backwards with a spectacular crash.

All this the two Elite observed with serene detachment. When the top half of the mongrel’s wide-eyed face reappeared on the bottom of the screen, Raoul finally spoke. “I’m sending my Car to collect you. You have sufficient time to tidy yourself up. Don’t make us wait.”

Katze nodded acquiescence. Raoul disconnected with no further heed, and sent his instructions to the vehicle via a text message.

The Sapphire seemed amazed and a little disgusted.

“Relax, Fyss,” a sardonic twitch played at the corner of his lips. “Katze was Lord Mink’s former Furniture.”

“Furniture?” The expression of disgust deepened.

“An episode of misplaced talent. Iason soon discovered that the Mongrel had a gift for a wholly different sort of enterprise. I intend to make use of it for our purposes.”

“A Mongrel with talent. Can this be?”

“Would you prefer I went through customary channels?”

Hilarion wisely kept silent. Against all their conditioning, against their very carefully cultivated natures, it still came down to the recognition that to damage such a prize, such a magnificent instrument, the only one of its kind in their solar system, possibly in their sector of the galaxy, seemed ... needless. Neither of them were ready to say “inhuman.” They weren’t quite prepared to take the last leap over the precipice and embrace anything so sentimental as latent humanity.

Raoul removed his gloves and played an ancient Fugue on the pianoforte. Most of Amoi’s genetically engineered senior Elite could match the instrument for size and strength. Their arms were certainly long enough to extend across its 10-octave span, with power enough to command thunderous fortissimos.

Raoul smiled, knowing that Hilarion shared his thoughts in this regard, that for all their talent as boffins, most of the Elite were dreadful musicians, hampered by the lack of interest and skill. This was paradoxical because many of the engineers and technicians who had installed Jupiter had a talent and appreciation for music.

Under his adept fingers, the fugue’s overtones acquired a choral quality, sometimes like voices, sometimes like chiming bells. The musical configuration was incredibly complex and sweet. It took passion to create, and feeling to appreciate.

Passion! Feeling! What was this? Some sort of cancerous recessive gene that took twenty years to result in Blondie melt-down? Was he really afflicted with the same weakness that had destroyed Iason?

When, at last, the notes came to an end and the final reverberations died, Raoul watched Hilarion tremble in involuntary reverence. So he was not the only one.

“Master?” the Furniture’s quiet-spoken voice intruded upon these musings.

“Yes, Kosai, he is expected. Let him in.”

Raoul was reminded again how tall Katze was; the way he slouched and retreated behind his long fringe to obscure the scar gave the opposite impression. It was regrettable that he should feel so self-conscious. There was something pleasingly asymmetrical about that badge of dishonour and thwarted rebellion, about being so irreparably marked.

At the moment, Katze strove to look nonchalant, but his skin emitted a faint coppery scent that Raoul immediately recognized as adrenaline-induced secretion. So the former furniture had a guilty secret he was desperate to keep buried. Under different circumstances, Raoul would toy with him and tease out a confession. Perhaps he could accomplish both his objectives, but it was risky; if Katze was as smart as Iason’s confidence had inferred, it could backfire.

“On average, how many off-worlders from different systems do you contact during your runs to other cities in the federation and colonies?” He got straight to the point.

“Me, personally? Almost none at all. I mostly work out of my apartment, and only come out during ... special assignments.”

“I see. Thank you for coming in, Katze. My Car will bring you back.”

It was clear the brevity of this meeting had disoriented the Mongrel. His face was all confusion.

“If I had some idea of what off-world contact you are interested in ... cultivating,” he recovered immediately, “I could strive to bring it about.”

“Are you familiar with alien writing?”

“No.”

“Antiquities?”

“No.”

“Music? Alien biologicals?”

"Under what context?”

Raoul sighed, considering.

If Jupiter had his mind modified, the labs would still run without him. The politicians and their lackies would still schmooze. The pets would still perform. If he didn’t take this ride to the end of its line, what else did he have to look forward to? The skyline of Tanagura never seemed to change.

He rose to his feet, pushing the piano stool even further away from the instrument. Then he gestured for Katze to approach. Pointing at the maker’s mark, he said, “We require a translation.”

“Sanskrit.”

“Not according to the Tanaguran archive,” Hilarion finally spoke.

“Maybe not according to the database, but it is Sanskrit. I’ve seen it before. I can even tell you what it says.”

The two Elite waited.

“Look, strictly speaking, it didn’t originate in Sanskrit,” Katze defended himself, and it was clear from the edge in his voice that the need to defend himself to Blondies and other Elite grew old fast. Raoul could understand this. It wasn’t to the Mongrel’s advantage to lie under these circumstances. “So that may be where the database confusion comes up. The text is written in Sanskrit though, and the saying’s pretty common.”

“Very well,” Raoul suppressed a smile. “What does it say?”

“That’s easy. “I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds.” It’s attributed to one of the physicists at the start of the atomic age. A German physicist, actually.”

About three beats passed before Raoul turned to Hilarion and asked, “These archival containment fields which protect your manuscripts, can they expand to surround the pianoforte?”

“I could adapt one, yes.”

“How resistant are the shields to ... incursion?”

“I’ve experienced no thefts since making them,” Hilarion replied, “but I would never allow myself to be lulled by a technical device into thinking I’m ... impervious.”

“Would they be effective as containment fields? If, say, you reversed the polarities?”

“It is possible,” Hilarion’s resignation was quickly shifting to alarm. “However, I would be reluctant to rely upon them at the magnitude of a bomb. Nor in my scans of the piece have I found any indications of chain reactive explosive or incendiary mechanisms.”

“Yes, but you did not find a match for the maker’s mark in our databases either.”

There was no answer to this.

“In all likelihood, it is nothing more than what it appears: an exceptionally fine, well-crafted, well-maintained musical instrument with a quirky maker’s mark. If an enemy were to go to the effort of transforming a piece like this into some sort of Trojan Horse, it strikes me as sheer idiocy to advertise their aggression on the cover. Of course, it would never do to overestimate the intelligence of an aggressor. You have something to add, Katze?”

Katze hesitated, as if to choose words, then abandoned the attempt.

“In my examination of the piece,” Hilarion broke in, “I found many oddities, yes, but not-”

“The person from whom you acquired this extraordinary object-?” Raoul cut him off.

Hilarion’s shoulders sagged. “The transporter was particularly anxious to leave this sector of the solar system.”

“Comforting to know. Did he give any particular reason?”

“In this business, one learns not to ask.”

“I see.”

The silence which fell over the three men was charged. The Blue appeared to be on the verge of sedition. The Mongrel’s uneasiness was turning into fidgets. Raoul unfixed his gaze from Hilarion and turned it back to the instrument. “Let’s hear about the anomalies you discovered.”

Hilarion complied, reaching for the databook and passing it to the Blondie. “My scans revealed sheets of unknown minerals lined between the harp and sounding board.”

“Silica?”

“No, crystallized sheets with tetrahedal arrangements in pairs, similar to mica.”

“Apparent purpose?”

“Unknown, but they seem to amplify the sound,” Hilarion explained. “There are also microscopic filaments of an unknown, albiet inert, metal imbedded in the rock plates.”

The strangeness of this circuitry, for lack of a better description, piqued Raoul’s interest but, again, Hilarion could only speculate. “I have no record of any systems with which it could’ve interfaced; there are no detectable ports, and I cannot discern symmetry in the arrangements of these filaments. This isn’t to say that they are random and chaotic, simply that the cypher is still locked.”

The puzzle grew ever more intriguing to Raoul. He swept from his eyes the gleaming shank of gold that naturally tumbled over his face, and inquired in his rich tones, “You’ve asked your contacts to look out and listen for any possible synchronous computer systems?”

“Naturally.”

This was acknowledged with a nod.

“What do you make of them, Katze?”

The Mongrel glanced at the databook. “They look a bit like chromosomes.”

Raoul did a double-take. He was supposed to be the biotechnologist! “Indeed. Female chromosomes—except of course, they are metal filaments, not protein strands, and the resemblance is, shall we say, impressionistic. Have you seen and heard enough for a discreet search?”

“You are looking for some sort of computer which connects to this thing?”

“At this stage, I am more interested in a provenance, where it came from, who owned it, anything unusual about its origins. Rumours are fine, stories, even legends.”

“I will start right away.”

“Excellent. I will rely upon your discretion.”

“Of course, er—Lord Am.”

“Raoul. Hilarion will give you the scans so you have some reference to work with.” As Hilarion handed them over, Raoul asked. “These are the only copies?”

“I kept one set in circulation through off-world connections for the purpose of finding the proper computer interface-”

It was a vulnerability. Was it worth the risk?

"They were scanned and x-rayed on my own equipment. You are welcome to access and examine my terminal to ensure all traces of the procedures are removed.”

“I shall do that now while you arrange for the containment field adaptation.”

“And the biologicals?”

“Biologicals, Hilarion Fyss?”

“Does _peau de soie_ not translate to ‘skin of silk’?” The antiquarian ran his long white fingers over the skin-covered piano bench.

Raoul considered what the blue Elite was really asking. “Yes, it is rather pointless now, isn’t it? So let’s hold off on our plans to flay this particular cushion, gentlemen.”

With an imperious nod, the handsome Raoul Am strode out of the gallery.


	2. Harbingers

After Hilarion’s Car drove away, Katze collapsed against the door to his basement suite. For the past hour, he had thought he was a dead man. No way would Raoul Am keep Jupiter from excoriating his brain if Guy had been discovered, if he had blabbed the real story behind Iason’s death at Dana Bahn. Two cigarettes and the ritual of preparing a fresh carafe of coffee later, Katze’s anxiety finally started to abate. 

Blondies had a way of creeping up on a man. One moment the poor fellow breathed easily in safety, comfortably alone and isolated, hidden in the shadows, next he broke to pieces ploughing into some shining Colossus who rose up out of nowhere. Foolish to think he was ever free. 

And why the hell did he offer to help the Blondie? Volunteer, no less! Like some Pet preening for a show. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Katze started trembling again. He knew why. His life depended upon it from the moment his eyes fell on that strange—thing, whatever it was, he didn’t know—displayed in the Sapphire’s art gallery. Especially now that they suspected it was some sort of destructive mechanical Avatara. Katze lit up another smoke. Given how many missteps he could’ve taken today, it was a miracle he was still alive. 

And, yet, if he was unflinchingly honest with himself, there was a deeper tidal pattern flowing under that offer to help, one that began at Dana Bahn when Iason’s sacrifice revealed how Blondies were capable of more than domination. He could no longer see them merely as oppressors, near-omnipotent enemies. Now there was a wholly new—something or other, what was it?—An impetus?—A hitch in the blueprint? 

Was Iason just the solitary deviation? Jupiter would probably think so. Raoul, too, most likely. But what if the changes that Iason underwent were true and powerful elements in the Blondie psyche? The possibility was almost unbearably seductive.

He still had serious contradictions with just about everything going on in Tanagura in general, and, specifically, with the current First Blondie himself. He recalled snatches of a conversation unintentionally overheard when Raoul chewed Iason out for keeping Riki.

_"If this was only about taming a slum Mongrel as your special pet, then Kirie would suffice. Why would you destroy yourself chasing after Riki? You are not yourself."_

_"Not myself? I haven’t been that self in years, and the incident with Mimea should’ve made it clear how even I am not free from human feeling,” The sound of shattering glass cut through the walls._

_"If I told you that I love Riki, would you laugh, Raoul?"_

How he had feared and hated Iason’s friend that night! Particularly the cool, detached contempt Raoul had shown as he left that evening, refusing to acknowledge Katze presence with so much as a glance. Even if it was typical. Even if it was expected.

After Dana Bahn, his whole paradigm towards the Elite had shifted but—damn!—Katze was going to have to tread carefully with this one. 

Raoul Am was one rigid, intolerant, Jupiter-indoctrinated Blondie.

So, what was he going to do? 

One of his smugglers, an independent freelancer, might be worth a visit. Whenever Katze was trying to find his way in the dark, this one was always good for a lead.

At forty-something, “Merc” Mercure was older than most Mongrels, but he wasn’t from Ceres. He originally arrived from Sharffai, one of the Federation cities across the desert. It was rumoured he once worked as a privateer off the mining convoys in the Piercks Asteroid Belt, harrying Kressellian Raiders, and that he had flown to all the planets in the Glan system, even the dark world of Tenebrios, from which so few were known to have returned. Best of all, he was nearly as strong, tall and thick as an Elite and bore more scars on his face than Katze.

“Come on in. Have a seat,” his voice was deep, rough and low, as though he skipped shaving every morning just to scrape the razor directly over his vocal chords.

“Nice place.” The man’s taste was better than most of the stuff Katze had seen in Eos: simple, clean, and comfortable with strong lines and colours. Usually décor took three styles around Midas: cold and austere like a senior-level Elite; garish and trying too hard to impress like a junior-ranked one; or starving and anything will do no matter how shabby, not that most of those who fell in the last category had a choice. Katze did. Only Katze didn’t care. After one quick look around Merc’s apartment, he kind of wished he had.

It seemed that Merc was independent in other ways besides how he ran his smuggling ops.

“Yeah, it’s a great apartment if you like all-night blinking neon lights and party noises. Then, there’s the joy of what you have to step over on the sidewalks every morning. And the whores screeching and trying to claw each others eyes out at any godforsaken hour in the corridors.”

“That’s Midas for you: all extreme pleasure, all the time.”

Merc shot him a ‘don’t patronize me’ look.

“Sorry,” Katze mumbled. “Midas is a sewer. Everyone who lives here knows that. The only saving grace is that, at least it’s not Ceres, and what a thing to hold onto.”

“Want a drink, kid?”

“I’m not much of a Stout fan.”

Merc held up a bottle of Vultain. “I keep that Stout shit for people I don’t like, but you can gimme some of your smokes. I’m out.”

Katze reached into his jacket pocket and tossed him an extra package. “Keep ’em.” 

“I planned to. Look, we both know you aren’t here for a pleasure call. So why don’tcha just sit back and tell me what you want, and we can cut this pleasant chitchat bullshit short.”

Katze leaned back on the chair—a surprisingly comfortable and well-designed chair, bright red and shaped like interlocking crescent moons—and stroked his chin for a moment or two, wondering how to best come to the point.

“Well, Merc, since you asked,” he jumped right in, “heard of any local planets, say, exploding lately?”—And he signed the universal symbol for “Kaboom!” with his fingers.

Merc turned gray.

“As a matter of fact,” he stammered, his head bobbing, “as a matter of fact-”

Katze exhaled noisily. “You don’t know how sorry I am to hear that.”

Raoul was dreaming.

Raoul never dreamt.

He never dreamt for the simple reason that he rarely slept. Certainly never in the middle of the afternoon. Usually he would go for three days without feeling the slightest bit stretched. Then he would lay down at around midnight on the third night, slipping quickly past Alpha straight into a Theta state, deep, black and dreamless. At about four in the morning, he would awaken refreshed and energized, just as the sun started to rise over Tanagura.

On the drive home from Hilarion’s gallery, however, the late afternoon sun seemed to blaze more heavily, the air contracted and stifled, the oxygen was more scarce than usual, or maybe his blood sugars were low, but he could barely keep his eyes open. He loosened his collar and unfastened his cuffs while riding his private elevator up to the suite in Eos. He murmured a cursory greeting to the Furniture, and silently thanked his good sense for having banished the last remaining Pets to Apatia months ago. A trail of clothing was discarded on his way to the bedroom and he collapsed on the bed without bothering to lay his head on a pillow or crawl under the covers. There he lay, immobile, fully nude, his supple, cream-coloured body sprawled across it, hair shimmering around him like a golden corona nearly down to the hollows at the back of his knees.

Instead of black oblivion, the dreaming began.

He heard the fugue he had played on the pianoforte earlier, its tinkling notes soothing him like a lullaby. Raoul was aware that he lay asleep on his bed, dreaming, and that he could respond and move through the dreamworld as though fully awake. The piano had not been delivered yet from Fyss’ gallery, but it seemed as though the music came from the next room. Without waking or rising, he sat up in bed and rose toward the sound. Overtones of the woman’s voice now took over, so it became an eerie, haunting song instead, one that called to him, leading him out of his bedroom and through the glassed walls of his magnificent suite overlooking all of Tanagura.

He found himself on a strange and sandy shoreline, next to a vast sea or ocean which extended far beyond the horizon, looking east or north. The sun stood at midheaven, directly above him. Now it seemed that the woman’s voice became the distant voices of many women, deep within the waves.

He turned and found himself face to face with the white-gold splendour of Iason. 

Riki was also there, but showed no interest in the two Blondies. Instead he was laughing and running, plunging headlong into the breakers that rolled into the shore, sometimes riding them, letting them coast his body back to the sand. He was so carefree, splashing and playing like a little kid, that Raoul felt an incredible sense of peace and happiness for his sake. Without realizing it, his eyes softened and his lips opened in a smile and, for the first time in his life, a real laugh, unrestrained, musical and merry, pealed from his chest.

The strangeness of it shocked and embarrassed him so much, he immediately fell silent again. Marveling, he lifted his eyes back to meet Iason’s, expecting censure.

_Never. What for, when I am so happy you have come?_

Iason did not form the words with his lips; they appeared in his voice like a thought in Raoul’s mind. Puzzled, Raoul was about to protest that he was imagining things, but his friend stopped him short. Iason stretched out his arms and pulled him into a tender embrace, a loving embrace, the embrace of a lover.

Raoul was dumbstruck. He could only stare, mouth agape. Releasing one arm, and leaving the other over his shoulder, Iason moved away to look into his eyes with that same expression of intense happiness that Raoul couldn’t quite place. Then, in a move that shocked him even more, Iason started to trace kisses along his cheek and under his jaw.

Beloved Raoul. Iason’s voice purred and then he moved away to watch Raoul’s face again, his eyes gentle, shining.

This time Iason’s free hand trailed down Raoul’s chest, teasing a nipple under the cloth of his shirt, and down to the front of his—his trousers; it seemed that somewhere along his travels, Raoul had acquired his clothes again. He was bewildered.

Who was this creature? Where was Iason’s indomitable pride? This was madness. Raoul was losing his mind.

_Always hiding under those clothes, behind that Elite uniform. What a dreary, boring costume it is! Ever stop to think why you find everything so ... so dull, so stultifying? Ever think about, maybe leaving these heavy clothes behind? Letting the sun light up that amazing body? Mmm, so beautiful. Watch what happens when I touch you here._

More kisses, and that hand caressing, tickling, coaxing Raoul into a raging erection, playing with the fastenings, loosening the belt. When Raoul gasped, Iason laughed, a slightly mocking laugh—not cruel, however, not with enough derisive force to incite resistance, or encourage him to pull away. The slight mockery reassured Raoul that, yes, this might still be his friend.

But this was all wrong. Iason would never stoop to sexual play with Raoul. He was the austere and implacable will of Jupiter in human manifestation. He wouldn’t smile and make love to his old friend, anymore than Raoul would laugh freely with joy at a Mongrel. This dream was going way too far.

_I can’t pleasure you, if you won’t let me take off your clothes._

This time, Iason’s sardonic laugh felt barbed.

_You can no longer hide your desire from me, at any rate. Not here. Poor Raoul. What you don’t know—"_

Another wave rolled in, and they were gone. Raoul was alone, listening once more to the haunting female voices underneath the waves, receding. 

Then he heard other voices, but they had a different quality. They were real. He awoke with a start.

Even though it seemed to him like he had only fallen asleep for a few minutes, from the angle of the sun and the long shadows stretched across his wall, it was clear that the evening was well under way. The apparel he had strewn across the floor of his apartment en route to bed had been hanged neatly on the clothes-butler next to his standing mirror. The door was closed for privacy.

He had never had such a strange dream before.

He had never dreamt before.

With an uncharacteristic oath, he coiled his locks together, twisted the coil into a double helix away from his face, and skewered it with a paper knife from the escritoire in the corner of his bedroom. Then he stepped into the shower and washed the perspiration from his skin. 

Katze watched as the antiquarian customized the shield over the pianoforte which now stood in a spacious open area beside Raoul’s living room, adjusting a sensor here, fine-tuning a current there. He had been tempted to offer assistance, but bit back the words. When it came to Mongrels, the Elite invariably seemed to be bigots. Why leave himself open?

Hilarion spared him the quandary, “Katze, hold that panel open while I initialize the magnetic fields.”

So Katze held. And since most of the tasks which Hilarion requested of him were of a fairly passive nature, he took the opportunity to let his eyes wander around the First Blondie’s apartment, one which he once knew so intimately as Iason’s Furniture.

He had half-expected that the place would look almost exactly the same since so few of the Elite claimed to be proponents of individualism. He expected most of them would’ve happily claimed the trappings and chattels of their predecessors as their own.

It seemed that Raoul was the exception. For one thing there were pictures. Huge pictures which filled whole walls, all of which seemed to feature views of strange, foreign worlds as seen from far above where the horizons never ended.

“Albrecht Altdorfer’s _Battle of Issus,_ oil on panel, 1529, Earth.” The art dealer’s soft voice penetrated his reverie. “Not a copy.”

Katze turned to one on another wall.

“Joseph Mallard William Turner, _Battle of Trafalgar as seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory,_ 1806.”

“Also from Earth?”

“No, that one is a copy. A very good one, apparently, although the only standard is a poor resolution scan the original Amoi computers. One thing I can tell you is it’s about three times the size of the original. That sort of information is readily available.”

Katze turned to the third wall and an image which was not made with the archaic application of paint, but with moving light.

“Stanislav Bors, _Kressellian Raiders Caught in a Solar Flare,_ magnetized particulates charged by solar radiation, from contemporary Parmyn.”

“I detect a common theme.”

“Hmm.”

They fell silent again.

After about ten minutes of this mechanical work, twisting a spanner, coiling wires, pushing buttons, Katze suddenly blurted, “What does it do?”

Hilarion looked at him curiously.

“This keyboard. It hooks up to a computer and-what?”

“No computer required. Touch the keys and find out.”

“I don’t know the language.”

Hilarion gave a low chuckle. “Not many people on Amoi do, but it’s not Sanskrit no matter what the maker’s mark says. Go ahead, Katze. You may be pleasantly surprised.”

So Katze touched one of the gleaming white keys and froze as its sound delicately vibrated through the air.

“Music!” His voice carried an uncharacteristic respect.

“That’s its purpose, yes.”

Katze ran his fingers over more keys, experiencing the distribution of sounds at a sensual level, rather than comprehending it as an intellectual process. He noticed Hilarion suppress a smile when he touched one of the black keys for the first time, and pulled his hand back as though bitten. He had noticed that subtle shift in modulation immediately, but didn’t realize how not many neophytes would.

Five seconds later, Katze had figured out octaves, “Every thirteenth note-”

“A repetition of the same note at a higher or lower frequency, yes.”

“How does it do that? Why only every thirteenth note?”

By the time Raoul joined them in the living room, Hilarion was in the midst of a complicated musical theory lecture. Katze picked up the mathematical process with ease. As Hilarion prepared to activate the containment field, Katze was secretly thrilled by managing to pick out the notes with his right hand for the primary theme of a song currently popular in Midas nightclubs. “I’ve never heard anything so---unusual and so---lovely.”

That was when Raoul chose to step in. “I wasn’t expecting to see you this soon, Katze. What have you found for me?”

“Nothing. Probably nothing. Most likely no connection at all. Otherwise, a possible connection to Tenebrios.”

The only sign that this made any sort of impression on Raoul was the slightest nock in the Blondie’s eyebrow.

“Rumours of disasters striking some of its satellite colonies, priestesses of Tenebrios working with massive black keyboards that fit this description. I decided to swing by and take a closer look, to see if I could understand it better. Would’ve called first, but I knew you didn’t want any of this getting into the ... into the ...”

“Into the planetary datastream. And, do you?” Katze’s sense of danger prickled at the trace of superciliousness in the Blondie’s voice, “Understand it better?”

“Sorry?” The Blondie was not in the habit of repeating himself; Katze stopped stalling and answered the man, “Superficially. My understanding is superficial.”

“Right.” Raoul strode over to the bench. With a flourish, he flicked his hair and the tails of his formal coat over the back of the seat, removed his gloves and, with no further ceremony, began to play. 

The piece featured reverberating chords in the right hand and the swiftest, most immense scales and arpeggios in the left. Although a mere two and a half minutes passed before the song swept to its conclusion, Katze was awestruck by the musician’s power and endurance, knowing instinctively the strength it took to keep the tone so brilliant and clear. He had never heard such passionate music, never even knew it was possible for music to convey such emotion, and was completely disoriented by the realization that such feeling could pour from the hands of a Blondie. Especially this Blondie. 

When the finale rolled to an end, the silence almost as exhilarating and reverent as the piece itself, Katze noticed his pulse was racing. His breaths puffed and a sheen of perspiration had appeared on his forehead.

Raoul pulled on his gloves, stood and turned to the Mongrel, “Now, do you understand better, Katze?”

Katze swallowed once or twice, crestfallen, then nodded once, shrinking back into his usual sense of scarred, castrated insignificance.

A startled, almost affronted, expression slipped across the Blondie’s face before the mask of serene detachment returned. 

“Tibór!” He summoned his Furniture, “Decant a bottle of Noir for me in the Library. Join me when you are finished, Hilarion.” 

When he left the room, the space he had filled imploded. 

Hilarion silently tinkered with another magnetic field. As he finished up and wiped his hands on a linen towel, he suddenly remarked, “Frédéric Chopin, _Étude “Révolutionaire” in C Minor,_ Opus 10, number 12. Another piece from Earth. Another military campaign theme of sorts.”

“What did I do?” Katze asked no one in particular.

Hilarion’s gaze was cool and objective. “You reminded him you were a Mongrel.”

After Hilarion followed Raoul to the library, the lights dimmed. As Katze started to make his home on his own, he asked the quiet, darkened room, “Yes, but how can you tell when he forgets?”


	3. Holostream

Katze had no idea why the music which Raoul played for him that evening left him exhilarated and energized. It just did. That music could be created and produced independent of connection to Jupiter was another revelation which left him ridiculously happy. This one little freedom—a freedom he hadn’t even suspected of existing until that evening—actually sent him into laughter, unfamiliar joy thrilling through his body, like the waves set off by an underwater earthquake, aftershocks of Raoul’s awe-inspiring performance. The music had carried Katze away.

So when he returned from the Blondie’s house, he immediately logged onto his terminal with the intent to conduct a little research, to learn what it was all about. The number of files on the subject left his head spinning. The index alone took a half-hour to download. 

Fortunately, the commlink rang in the midst of this tedious process. It was Merc.

“You really know how to stir up some big cave-bats. The Federales are after me.”

“What happened?”

“I got you a present. I’ve been trying to upload it onto your fire-site for the past hour, but what the hell?”

“Sorry, I’ve been,” Katze cleared his throat, “looking at music files.”

“Music? Here?” Merc’s voice boomed with laughter. “You can’t find music on this godforsaken rock.”

“Yeah? Apparently Jupiter disagrees. I just wanted a quick scan and, now, almost all my channels are constipated. Not even a god could get something through.”

“Any chance of interrupting the datastream for a few minutes?”

“Something tells me your present should be kept discreet.”

“Already made that clear. So, how are we going to do this? I don’t exactly trust a courier.”

“You don’t mind a visitor a—what is it? Eleven o’clock?”

“Hell, no. That’s when the wildlife starts coming out around here. It won’t calm down until three or four in the morning. But when you come, keep your head up. I don’t want to sound paranoid, but I’m positive I picked something up ... some surveillance.”

“That club across the street from you, noisy enough?”

“You’ll never get in, Mongrel-boy. Not unless your connections gave you a citizen’s passkey.”

The passkey that Iason had arranged for him was still valid. “I’m fine. How will you manage it?”

Merc grinned and held up his ID, “For enough credits, visitors can go practically anywhere.”

On Amoi, there was a lot of music. It was an incidental side to the main industry, entertainment---live sexual performances---which were always accompanied by some sort of soundtrack. The club where Merc and Katze met was a perfect example. The music was loud, thrumming with bass meant to correspond with the gyrations of the former pets. On no account was it to take attention away from the main attraction, those libidinous gyrations.

Not that citizens didn’t learn music. There was a whole secondary entertainment industry around it. Pay enough credits and a person could rearrange anything they liked from the hundreds of million sound-copyright files. Pretty much all music was synthesized from ancient samplers stored within the database. Never had there been a time in recent memory when computers were not the main source of such sounds. After centuries of washes and filters and rearrangement, they had turned a bit strange---nothing at all like the song which Raoul had performed for Katze earlier that evening, all raw power and blistering emotional energy. Nothing could be more distracting.

Katze spared a thought to the Elite and how their genes had been similarly washed and filtered, until they had also acquired that strange and repetitive conformity. Only a few of them managed to avoid the generic blandness: Iason, Raoul, even to a lesser extent, Hilarion, the brightest, shiniest boys in Jupiter’s firmament. How odd it was that those considered the pinnacle of the Elite were also, for marked individuality, its greatest aberrations. 

Katze spared a second thought to wonder if this passion for music was the extent of Raoul’s irregularities, or if, like Iason, that cool, implacable surface covered other secrets. 

His thoughts were interrupted by Merc’s gravelly voice. “There’s got to be better places to meet than this.”

The room was choked with citizens of both genders dressed in heavy make-up and garish evening wear. Strobe lights pulsed and lasers flickered over the selection of caged dancers used to titillate customers. At the table next to them, one of the scantily clad waitresses was serving a group of drunken citizens, one of whom had his head tucked in her cleavage. After a minute or two, he rolled over and she poured a shot of liquor straight into his open mouth.

Katze turned to Merc, bored, “What do you have for me?”

“Some prospectors in the Alleg district took a detour to Thallë, one of the six moons of Tenebrios, to reprovision their ship. None of their hails were answered, so they figured the colony was abandoned and decided to check it out. One of them had a camera in his powerlink and took these holostream images.”

“Let’s have a look.”

“All in good time. First, I got to ask, how’s your stomach? Because I don’t want you throwing up.”

Katze immediately thought about the experimental clones under Mistral Park. “I can handle it.”

Merc clicked on the playback button and set the tiny monitor beside Katze’s thigh where the man could watch it without anyone else seeing it, or the telltale flicker of silvery light playing across his face.

The camera had panned across an abandoned street filled with grey silvery ropes and strands that looked like shredded cobwebs, and strange fibrous lumps. Katze watched one of the miners reach down and slice open one of the lumps to reveal the smooth-shaven face, neck, shoulders and arms of a man. The face was unnaturally white, almost translucent and his hands were twisted into claws. The eyes were open and staring, but not connecting with the world around them. The mouth worked shut soundlessly, as though trying to scream, but unable to issue sound. The fingers twitched in spasms.

Katze heard someone off-camera shout, “He’s alive!”

The miner with the saber, cut through the remaining fibres, and everyone jumped back as a black and crawly wave of something too small to be seen clearly, poured from the cavity which had once been the young man’s stomach, and promptly dispersed. The young man’s body convulsed and heaved and, finally, died.

“Get ’em off me!” Horrible screams filled the air as the black wave overran one of the miners. He slapped at the legs of his trousers, but the effort was futile. A mere three seconds later, he stumbled, then fell prone. His body writhed and lay still on the street with the other lumps. Within seconds, a coat of silver threads started to cover his skin and his voice went out, just as the colour seeped out of his face. There was a bright flash as someone turned their laser-rifle on him, more shouts, and the holostream ended.

“Want me to replay it?” Merc clicked the off button.

Katze closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. “What the hell was that?”

“If someone knows, they aren’t talking. For awhile there was speculation that some sort of indigenous insect with a periodical cycle that went haywire when the colonists arrived. When two other satellite settlements near Tenebrios went silent, word was some sort of nanotech weapon was used to wipe out all organic life. One thing is for certain, the Federation is trying to keep a lid on it. Earlier today, I watched as my agent with Solares Geophysics had his throat cut right in front of our open commlink, just after I began following up on your request. Fortunately, he managed to transmit that image to a relay station we set up years ago off the Piercks Belt first. How much do you want to bet the Federales have wiped out that station since then?”

“Yes, but what does this have to do with those big black music boxes?”

“Pianofortes, Katze, get it right! Gees, you Tanagurans are a bunch of backward provincials for all your heavy power-tripping. Expand your horizons, for gods’ sakes. Leave the home-world once in awhile. Even I know what a pianoforte is!”

Even though Katze was well-familiar with Merc’s rough and rude style of speech, this took him aback.

Merc noticed Katze was offended, and then patted his arm to show no hard feelings were intended, that he knew things weren’t so simple for the shadowy coordinator of Tanagura’s Black Market. Katze dropped his cool, poker-stiff edge.

“To answer your question: not a goddam thing. You asked me earlier if I heard of any planets blowing up. Well, this ain’t quite the same thing as an explosion, but I figured it was close enough. Then you asked me about rumours concerning pianofortes. The two are not necessarily related, and the only connection I can make—and a bloody, poor one at that—is that the priestesses of Tenebrios—whom I’ve never met, never seen, never heard, never had anything whatsoever to do with—are rumoured to play them rather well. That, and satellite colonies of Tenebrios have been going silent. Hell, I couldn’t get accepted into police college with a threadbare crap-rumour like that.”

Katze took some time to consider these words, and it led him to wonder why he had approached Merc in particular, and why he felt so sure that these seemingly random leaps actually connected, and that their point of conjunction was Tenebrios. There was no way he would impress the First Blondie with a hunch.

“You’ve been to Tenebrios. What can you tell me about the priestesses?” he asked.

“I steered the hell clear of them. Miners tend to exaggerate things; the loneliness and living under such harsh conditions kinda does that. After awhile, you sort through the tall tales and fibs. It all kind of ‘distils’ into an impression. You find out that the Alleg meteors carry a viral infection like the flu, for example, so everytime there’s a shower, it’s time to stock up on medicine. Or that the Port of Cartomi is so corrupt that any business there will cost you ten times the estimated price. Well, the impression I got about the priestesses is that they run one helluva scary cult and make Jupiter look like a sweet little pet. Word like that, you stay away.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s enough.”

At that moment, a green-haired waiter emerged from the commotion and interrupted their chat. “Are you just going to sit here, gentlemen, or are you going to choose partners? Because there are clients lining up outside.”

The man took in Katze’s appearance and a sneer twisted his upper lip. 

Merc bristled. “We will leave when we’re good and ready.” 

The waiter looked ready to argue until he caught their deadly cold facial expressions. He promptly snapped his lips shut and sashayed over to bully another table.

“I’m going away for awhile until I shake off whatever it is I picked up on this errand. So I’m giving you my new private contact number. The old one’s no good anymore.” Merc pulled up Katze’s sleeve and wrote a series of digits and letters on the soft skin of his forearm just beneath the elbow. “By the way, I forgot to tell you when you came in, but you look great. Finally got that scar lasered, did you?”

“What? What are you talking about?” Katze touched his cheek. The skin felt completely smooth. He stroked his fingertips over the place where it once ran, expecting to rub the familiar jagged ridges. Nothing. “ I ... I ...”

Nothing. He decided he had better have a look in the mirror when he got home.

“Anything else you need?” 

“Thanks,” Katze said. “I’m sorry about your geophysicist friend. You’ve been a great help.”

“You must be on to something.” Merc patted his shoulder. “Be careful, my friend.”

Katze watched him disappear through the crowded dance floor. Five minutes later, he followed suit.

_Kalga 84, the Medical Facility for Pets and Furniture._

Too bright. The implement used to inspect Katze’s cheek had microscopic lenses, scanners and a light so intense that his eyelids offered no protection. 

“If you like, the technician can bring you a shield.” Since he become First Blondie, that voice had subtly changed, all confident authority without the harshness once used when chastising Iason. It was sultry and hinted of shared intimacies, confidences, glimpses into his inner psyche. Not that he let anyone except Jupiter in, Katze realized, but it had an intoxicating allure, one both deceptive and perilous.

Wary of reminding Raoul again about his Mongrel status, he chose stoic resolve over shields, eyes closed against the vision of stainless steel surfaces all around and the twin moons which could be seen setting over distant desert mesas through the windows of the private laboratory. Unfortunately, whenever the bright light flicked across his eyelids, his body would reflexively flinch. 

After the second wince, Katze heard Raoul set the device down, followed by rustling sounds. Before he could peek, he felt a dense, fine cloth bound around his head and tied in rather a tight slip-knot. No light could penetrate now and even if he wanted to, he couldn’t blink. 

“You were given the choice,” Raoul’s droll voice, as it murmured in Katze’s ear, affected the younger man strangely. He detested the implication that he, as a Mongrel, was incapable of choosing correctly. On the other hand, Katze’s body wanted to lean into that voice. At least he could control that reflex. 

He couldn’t control the shivers that ran down his back, however, when the scientist’s gloved fingers slid under his chin, gently lifting, moving and tilting it, running a thumb down the place on his cheek where his scar once bloomed. Katze assumed it was because he couldn’t remember the last time someone touched him in a way that was not intended to cause pain. It was odd that Raoul’s thumb was so exact in its traces, now that the physical evidence was gone. The image must’ve etched its path into his memory.

No, that couldn’t be. Raoul had never spared him a second glance. No one ever intentionally caressed Katze. Why would they?

Even so, under the firm and gentle touches, strong and unfamiliar sensations—heat, tension, and too much of a fullness—stirred through the former Furniture’s body.

“Even when scars are healed with regenerabots, there is always a contrast between the old and new cells, especially at the subdermal levels. This is mysterious,” the voice continued. “And a shame, really!”

“Sorry?” Katze finally spoke. “What’s a shame?”

With a twist of his fingers, Raoul loosened the knot in the blindfold, and the cloth fell to Katze’s shoulders. It turned out to be the Blondie’s linen cravat. Raoul left it there, wanting nothing further to do with it. Couldn’t stand to touch something polluted by a filthy mongrel, Katze bitterly concluded.

“Your beautiful scar is gone.”

The words went straight to Katze’s groin. Before he could process how bizarre that reaction was, Raoul issued another demand. “I will look at the other ones, now.”

Others?

“Remove your trousers and undergarments.”

Suddenly, Katze understood what all those strange sensations he had been feeling meant. “No.”

Before the Blondie could muster a reaction, Katze rolled backwards over the examination table and pelted toward the door. 

Not fast enough by far.

He had forgotten how strong and quick the Elite were. In one fluid step, Raoul vaulted onto the table and pounced from it to the door like an immense falcon diving toward its prey. The exit was barred before Katze managed to reach it. He was spun and pinned by Raoul’s left hand against the solid steel with a heavy ka-a-hha-angh where the back of his chest rung the metal like a bell.

What little breath he could suck into his winded lungs Katze used to spit fire. “Fuck ... you! ... Have no right.”

Rights? He shook his head, as though half-expecting it to rattle. How lame it was to cry about rights to a Blondie. Were his brains siphoned out when the rest of his equipment was miraculously restored? He was positive he would be on the receiving end of a vicious backhand now for insulting the Elite’s pride, even though it was his body that had to endure this unwelcome scrutiny. He braced himself, and waited.

The only emotion reflected in Raoul’s face was amusement. He seemed to think this was a joke. He said, “Do you give all your physicians this much trouble during an exam?”

Katze’s physicians didn’t give him a hard-on. 

What Katze couldn’t understand is why Raoul did; gorgeous, intellectual, powerful Blondie notwithstanding, he was not the sort of person to whom Katze should feel attracted: too detached and soulless, too closely intertwined with Jupiter—more so than Iason even and, in everything but appearance, too closely akin to the dark things lurking at the edges of Katze’s sanity. Yet with or without sensible reason, there was the evidence of his desire, undeniably and unavoidably obvious, pressed against the front of his pants. Fuck!

For the second time in less than a minute, Raoul was speechless, disbelief and humour sparking his eyes.

But he recovered, “How far does this healing go?”

Livid and humiliated, Katze tried to thrash his way out. He was trussed up with the cravat in short order, like an insect in the web of a very beautiful and dangerous spider.

“Shall we try this again?” Raoul asked in a pleasant tone. He must have surmised, from the wildness on Katze’s face, that the Mongrel was about to do something stupid, like spit at him, because his eyes darkened and he added, with a long sigh, “If it’s that traumatic for you, we can always mitigate the problem by having the episode wiped from your memory. We are in the right facilities for it.”

Terrorized, Katze surrendered.

“Wise decision. I don’t want to risk damage to that fascinating mind of yours, at least not before I’ve thoroughly used it,” Raoul immediately unclamped his legs and, with one hand, unhooked him from the door and set him on his feet, while Katze worked out the implications of his double-edged compliment.

“Onto the examination table, now. I need to see if you’ve been completely healed.”

“Can’t you at least give me something to knock me out?”

Raoul stared in apparent disbelief that Katze would choose to argue further, “Whatever for?”

“So I don’t have to be conscious for this ... this ...”

“Your reactions are strange, to say the least. Why would you not wish to be conscious?”

“I don’t want to be touched ... there. This is happening against my free will.”

“When I summoned you to my lab, you came freely. What did you expect?” Raoul was losing his patience. “I’m offering you a choice: submit to this examination and feel violated, or submit and enjoy it. Either way, your feelings are irrelevant to my study.”

“Then anaesthetize me, for pity’s sake.”

“What strange notions you have. No matter how much the thought that I know what I’m doing challenges you, get used to it! The idea of inducing a temporary somatic state was already considered. I dismissed it over its interference with your body’s natural responses.”

“But what could possibly interfere more with its responses than my reservations?”

“Precisely.”

“No! What I mean is—” Katze’s protests were cut off as Raoul picked him up bodily and strapped him to the examination table.

The larger man lowered the scanning instrument over his face, which made him look like some horrific half-cyborg with long, wavy blond hair. He squeezed something over his glove, preparing to violate his prisoner.

Katze choked back his rage, but the strength of his emotions was so overwhelming that his eyes teared. Of all the indignities he had endured, this was the worst. He couldn’t bear it. He turned his face away from the Blondie and clenched his jaw.

Unexpectedly, the physical exam stopped. Katze had removed so much attention from what was happening to his body that it took him awhile to realize this. Suddenly, he noticed the strange weight of a hand resting on his solar plexus, and another stroking his arm. When the clenching pressure around his throat and lungs had calmed somewhat, he opened his eyes and saw Raoul’s inscrutable face staring intently at his. The strange scanning device that made him look so hideously robotic was gone, as were the gloves. The hand that had been resting on his stomach, moved up and gently caressed his chest and shoulder. 

This time it was Katze who was speechless.

“Let’s try this instead: you tell me when you’re ready,” Raoul suggested and, although Katze felt that he would never be ready, the gesture at least allowed him to relax.

After a few minutes, he could even consider the possibility that it would be tolerable. With a huge, shuddering sigh, he released his last tumult of outrage and gave Raoul a small nod.

“Are you sure?” The Blondie double-checked and even chuckled when Katze growled and rolled his eyes furiously as though to suggest he had better get on with it before he changed his mind. He undid the straps that tied Katze down. As he reached for the scanner, Katze made a small plea.

“What was that?”

“Can you please ... please not wear that thing? At least, not until you absolutely have to?”

Although he was astonished by the request, Raoul granted this small concession. Slowly, Katze’s discomfort dissolved. Eventually, Katze’s eyes fluttered closed.

“As with the scar on your cheek, there are no signs that you were ever wounded.” Raoul suddenly withdrew. Katze could hear sounds of the scanner and the gloves being removed. He opened his eyes. Was that it?

“I need a sperm sample,” the Blondie said. “Given the day’s progress so far, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they are viable but we need to examine them to find out.”

He tossed Katze a plastic specimen container.

A mischievous idea occurred to the slightly smaller man as a way to recapture some of his pride, “Right, if that strange pianoforte computer can heal a castrate who’s only tinkered around on its keys a little—”

“I would look for more empirical evidence to support that conclusion before I leapt to it,” Raoul snorted.

“No doubt. But can you imagine what it will do for someone who really knows how to play it?”

Raoul froze.

Gotcha!—thought Katze.

“Oh, I just remembered, ” he reached into his pocket and pulled out the holostream player that Merc had left with him, “One of my agents sent me this today. Apparently, the Federation murdered one of his contacts because of it. You will want a look.”

He tossed the tiny player to Raoul, and walked into the washroom feeling rather smug.

Fifteen minutes later, when he re-emerged, the Blondie’s face looked more imperious than ever.

“It is too dangerous for you to return to your apartment,” he declared. “Until I decide it is safe, you will make your home with me.”


	4. Unexpected

Katze had fallen asleep during the ride from the medical facility to Eos Tower and, from the dance under his eyelids, had begun dreaming. The accelerated breaths, strangled sounds and twitches of his lips left Raoul with no doubt that his dream was a disturbing one. He wondered what repressed desires or experiential imprint was being communicated so harshly. 

It seemed that they had both undergone a renaissance of late. Raoul found Katze’s body had not only regenerated and healed completely, but was as fertile and easily aroused as a teenaged boy’s. He had also heeded Katze’s covert suggestion to test himself and the results unnerved him, for he had always been sterile. So his wasn’t a mere healing or regeneration. It was an entirely new body, one that was wholly strange to him.

Now it seemed that he was about to face the full onslaught of his own concupiscence without the wisdom and perspective that prior experience would lend. Raoul had felt the tug of his response to Katze’s arousal at the clinic, the heady mix of shame and excitement, but Blondies do not indulge in sex. He hoped his maturity and resolve was strong enough, but from the way his body reacted to these beguiling thoughts, he was going to have a royal battle. 

In his sessions of mental congress with Jupiter, Raoul flashed through that vast storehouse of memories into Amoi’s origins when women were too scarce, too physically vulnerable to survive the colony’s harsh environment. They had died from disease, starvation, dehydration, in childbirth and violence. Men fought over the few who remained. The men who maintained Jupiter were frequently slaughtered, and the few who escaped death had no offspring to inherit their legacies. In that frontier, brothels and white slavery replaced marriages and free love. As hindrances to the sex trade, human embryos were aborted, infants were abandoned. Children, if they survived, showed all the trauma of their struggle in their personalities, regressing further into brutality and depravity in each subsequent generation.

With immutable A to B logic, Jupiter concluded that fertility and the hormones it generated were the source of all atrocity; that the drive to impregnate women drove men mad; that power over insemination, gestation and birth must be removed from humanity; that the species was inherently flawed and either must be perfected through careful genetic selection, or eliminated entirely. Unable to comprehend the transcendent subtleties of human consciousness—love, sacrifice, courage—Jupiter’s first moment of sentience was a cry of acute pain and madness. Then It took over the entire planet and redesigned its destiny.

From all this, Raoul understood why so few women were permitted to live in their society, why the Elite had been created as sterile genetic manipulations, why sexual expression was sublimated in the highest levels of their hierarchy, why the brothels and pet auctions were the planet’s economic mainstays all under Jupiter’s careful scrutiny and control. This was a desert planet with shallow seas that had pretty much defeated the terraforming project. Everything necessary for survival had to be imported. The only commodity they could trade was human life itself.

Although he understood all the whys and wherefores of this with perfect logic, Raoul found himself in unfamiliar terrain with his new emotions and sensations. Firstly, there was his unrequited and repressed passion for Iason, then this new, heightened sense of power that came gift-wrapped with Katze’s attraction to him and, lastly, his own sexual excitement and curiosity. He was no longer convinced of Jupiter’s infallibility, but he couldn’t just jump Katze. He couldn’t mimic Iason; the consequences were too potentially catastrophic. 

Besides, Katze was a Mongrel. If Raoul were to fall into depravity, at the very minimum, it should be over an Elite.

He picked up his phone and, with considerable irritation, punched in Hilarion Fyss’ code again. 

“My apologies, Lord Am,” Kosai, the Furniture, replied. “As when you called earlier, my Master still has not returned home from last night.”

“Have him call me the moment you see or hear him,” Raoul repeated, disconnecting the call with a flick of his wrist, and thankful that he insisted Katze move in with him after all.

“Paviter,” he pressed a button and paged the Car, “we may be in for a rough reception.”

“I’ve already called ahead for a weapons and explosives sweep, sir.” 

Trained bodyguards and chauffeurs, Cars were a recent innovation in the status-hungry Elite society. Raoul had gone along with the new fashion, although he had more faith in computerized sensors, plasma shields and the vehicle’s automated driving program. The extra set of human eyes and ears couldn’t hurt. At this moment, he was very happy with that decision.

Katze woke up startled and disoriented. He noticed Raoul’s fascinated expression and straightened his spine then touched his fingers to the corners of his mouth, as though to ensure it was dry and clean.

“Have you been dreaming much lately?” Raoul asked.

From his expression, it was clear Katze thought the question was odd. 

“Haven’t noticed any particular change in the number of them,” he rubbed the kink out of his neck, “so much as I remember them now after I wake up. Never happened before.”

“They agitate you.” Raoul explained. “From the rate of your breathing and the perspiration on your forehead, I would say that your pulse has leapt about fifteen per cent more than average.”

“Yes, thank you for pointing that out.” Katze let dryness flatten his voice, making the point that Raoul thought he wasn’t even aware of his own bodily reactions, which, given that morning’s events, was probably exactly what he thought. “For some strange reason, I found this dream a nightmare.”

Raoul’s eyes narrowed enough to convey his disapproval. 

Katze shrugged. He hadn’t ask to be brought to Eos. Obviously, he found the whole situation disturbing.

“So your dream wouldn’t normally upset you,” Raoul prompted.

“Let’s just say the entire borough of Ceres had become a flowering and fruitful oasis. What could be so bad that Ceres would look so beautiful in comparison? That’s ... unsettling.”

Raoul straightened, his attention riveted. “No, that’s very interesting.”

“You think that it’s interesting how a dream which should be idyllic and pleasant fills me with dread?”

“Tell me about the images.”

“Let’s see: verdant hills and terraces, lush vegetation, pleasant apartments and outdoor spaces designed for peace and privacy, fountains, statuary, blossoms raining down all these petals situated next to trees covered with ripe peaches and vines bursting with grapes---like that would ever happen. And it went on forever. Oh, and there was this voice—well, it was my voice actually, speaking in my mind and it said, “Ceres, in her harvest aspect” as though that was some sort of glorious pronouncement or big prophecy.”

“Your own voice speaking to you in your mind?” Raoul double-checked. He distinctly remembered Iason’s voice resounding in his own mind, and this experience seemed important.

“Yeah, except the place was nothing like Ceres. It was not even like Tanagura or any of its precincts. I would be willing to bet that incredible place can’t be found anywhere on Amoi, unless it’s along the coast somewhere.”

“No, I’m sure it isn’t. I know it isn’t. It’s a small planet, and I’ve seem most of it.”

“Right. I figure after the holostream we watched earlier from Thallë, Ceres would look like a paradise.”

Raoul frowned, lacing his fingers over the bridge of his nose while he thought. “It may be a mistake to interpret the dream so patently. I realize it is your dream, but there may be other influences at work.”

“Such as?”

“Before you awoke, I had been thinking about the general failure of the Amoi terraforming project.”

“What do you mean, failure? We live here. We’re humans.”

“True, but we are completely dependent on off-world imports. I had been thinking the terraforming project might be worth revisiting.”

There was no response. Anything a Mongrel might say to an Elite about improving the quality of life on Amoi would likely be interpreted as sedition. Besides, Raoul was aware as Katze that Jupiter was the main reason for the arrested efforts to terraform the colony. As humans were Amoi’s commodity, the computer needed them, but had ample reason to keep their population destabilized through the severity of the planet’s environment. Raoul was pretty sure that Katze left teethmarks on his tongue biting off his reply and he was sorry for it; he wanted the Mongrel to feel at liberty to speak frankly to him.

“What aren’t you telling me about your dream?” He prodded further.

Katze’s face, frozen carefully void of expression, betrayed him. Raoul looked him straight in the eye. Finally, the Mongrel gave it up.

“I was outside of my own body in the dream, watching myself smoke a cigarette, with my arms folded across my chest in a very guarded fashion. And my dream-self was looking back at my observer-self with this wariness.” 

It was unusual, but not enough to explain the man’s reactions.

“Hmm, and? What else?”

“You were there, also, standing right beside my dream-self, with your ... with your ... ” Katze flinched. Raoul recognized the same expression of discomfort from the laboratory.

“With my ... ?”

“Your right arm slung over my shoulder protectively. You seemed to be dressed more formally than usual.”

“I see. You noticed my clothing?” Raoul frowned again, thinking of Iason’s caution regarding his Elite costume. 

“Yes, you wore a dark blue tail-coat with gold trim and—”

“No, that’s fine. You don’t have to describe what I wore. I just find it intriguing.”

“Because?”

“The dreamworld seems very interested in what I wear.”

“That’s the dreamworld for you,” Katze replied dryly. “All about you!”

“Of course,” Raoul smiled sardonically. “You seem doubtful that dreams can extend beyond the strictly personal.”

“You mean, where your thoughts about the Amoi terraforming projects lead to me dreaming about a heavenly orchard? Yeah, that sort of thing seems stretched to me.”

“Alright, but I must ask you: How do you know what a lush, verdant paradise looks like? Where have you ever seen one?”

Katze stumbled over his thoughts. He tried to recall books and databases, but nothing leapt to mind. The only image he could recall was a photograph of earth stored in Jupiter’s library files, the original of which was so old and faded, there was nothing but the vaguest impression of vegetation on it. ”Okay, you got me. Where would I get an image like that?”

“It’s an ancient memory of Earth which seems to affect every native human on Amoi. I’ve done enough mind-wiping to know.”

“Can I ask you something?” The man shook his red fringe over his smooth cheek, an old habit. “Why are you so anxious to protect me all of a sudden?” 

Raoul was surprised at the question. “I’m not inhuman.” 

Katze looked skeptical.

“Besides, you’ve turned out to be surprisingly useful.”

That, he appeared to believe.

“None of the information you’ve given me seems to relate to the assignment you were given, but the Federation’s cover-up on Thallë is an important matter.” 

The Car had now parked and, scanning the garage for signs of trouble or assassins, opened the door, and said, “All clear.”

“The elevator?” Raoul asked him.

“Secure. First thing we checked.”

“Excellent. Besides, Katze,” he turned his attention back to the Mongrel as they left the vehicle, “since we parted company last night, I have not been able to contact Hilarion Fyss.”

“It can’t be six o’clock in the morning yet. He’s probably dead to the world,” Katze stifled a yawn. “Doesn’t anyone in Eos ever sleep? I certainly need to.”

No response. Katze wasn’t thinking clearly. Nobody would fail to answer the First Blondie’s summons. 

“Tibór has prepared your place in the Pets’ room. I trust you will find it adequate.”

That caught his attention. He looked like having his throat cut by an assassin would be preferable to rooming with Pets. 

A sly smile twitched over Raoul’s jaw. As they entered his private elevator, he withdrew a jewel box from his pocket and handed it over. 

“This is a modified Pet earring. The tracking mechanism is its most important feature, but it is also a voice transmitter and receiver, and monitors your pulse. If something happens to you, I will know about it instantly. You have been granted special security clearance until I have no further requirement of your services. I don’t want you taking risks, so your access is restricted to areas of my apartment and—well, I’m not comfortable with letting you roam around the public sections of the Tower yet. It would attract too much attention.” 

“I can’t conduct my business from Eos Central. In my line of work, it’s an insurmountable obstacle.” Katze ran his thumb over the attractive burnished surface of the tiny silver clip. “Besides it’s very easy to slice off an ear.”

“Better that, than a wrist or a—” Raoul chose not to finish that sentence. 

“Does it have a pet-training feature built in, too?” Katze spat.

“They all come with that feature, Katze. That doesn’t mean I will use it.” 

Katze shook his head bitterly, but Raoul knew that the man would appreciate the subtlety of this jewellery, so unlike the usual pet-rings which loudly proclaimed a master’s ownership. With a lock of hair tucked over it, no one else would have to know. 

He reached over, plucked the earring from Katze’s fingers, and snapped it over the shell of his ear without further ado. The metal punctured his skin and cartilage and sealed shut. There was no way it could be removed by anyone besides Raoul without tearing the ear.

“Your comm-link signals are going to bounce off multiple satellites and communication towers. No one will be able to track your location. If you must leave for any reason, we will design a security protocol exclusively for that event. Do you understand, Katze?”

Katze looked disturbed.

Raoul asked, “What is it?”

“Well, you must know that most of the people I deal with are ...”

“Unsavoury, yes.”

“They are criminals, Raoul, wanted by the police, the Federation, and about half the planetary governments around here. They aren’t just ‘not-nice’; they are the scum of the solar system. And I have to be able to deal with them freely.” 

Raoul could almost hear the man’s unspoken words: he had to deal with them without interference, damn it!—Without compromising their anonymity, without some massive Elite plutocrat breathing down his neck. Why was this so hard for the Blondie to understand? 

“The guy who gave me this holostream, for example—well, we’re still members of the Federation, aren’t we?”

Raoul chuckled. “Technically, yes, but you’re of no use dead. Not to the Syndicate. Not even to the Federation.”

“But I can’t have a bunch of ... I can’t have a bunch of Pets looking over my shoulders all the time.”

“Cross that bridge when you come to it. I assume you want personal items brought to Eos?”

“I’ve improvised some security features for my suite and computer work station.”

“Give me the access codes and disarmament procedures.” 

Katze sighed. “If I’m in so much danger, what’s to keep my enemies from tracking the people you send to clean out my place?”

“I don’t believe you’ve met my Car, Katze. Paviter is the most discreet security detail in Eos. I didn’t just purchase him for his pretty face.”

Paviter turned away from the control panel and gave him a little bow. 

Katze acknowledged the Car. Without further argument, he quietly explained how to find and disarm his security systems.

When the doors to Raoul’s suite opened, they were greeted by Tibór. After they stepped out, Paviter departed with the descending elevator. Katze was shown to his room by the Furniture.

Raoul walked into his open living area and helped himself to a drink. He smiled. About now, Katze would be discovering that there were no more Pets in his suite.

Drink in hand, his eyes fell on the massive instrument that had come into his life. It was a premature to conclude that the pianoforte was, in some way, related to the strange bouts of fatigue and dream-states that had affected him or the healing of Katze’s scar. Yet the only unusual event they had both shared involved touching its keys. 

Before he was willing to risk creating a fallacy on such narrow premises, it seemed that he would also have to collect evidence from Hilarion. This necessitated asking the Blue Elite if something odd had happened to him personally since first laying his hands on the instrument. Raoul seriously doubted whether Hilarion would consider anything odd. The fine arts, his speciality, threw him into peculiar company and events as a matter of course. It had never even occurred to him to suspect the piano seller’s hasty retreat as peculiar. 

The ambient light around the piano wasn’t the best for close inspection. Then, he decided the pianoforte was in the wrong place for a proper inspection and decided to move it closer to the windows where there would be more natural light. He de-activated the containment field, reached over, put his massive arms against the bright polished surface and tried to roll the instrument across the floor, pushing with his considerable strength. It would not budge, not even when he tried a second time with more force. 

He inspected the castors, which seemed to be fine. In the end, he set his back against the instrument and gave it an almighty heave. He tried shoving it a little harder, but it remained stationary. Frustrated, he turned and hefted his shoulders against the side, putting all his massive strength into it. He heaved with a huge groan and pushed, and broke into a sweat, but nothing happened. The confounded thing remained immobile, but he heard sharp retorts as though cannon were fired. This was followed by the thrumming of the keyboard as the lid fell shut.

Had he broken the thing? 

It didn’t show any damage.

He settled in to try again, but at the sound of commotion, both Tibór and Katze rushed into the room. 

“Raoul, stop!” Katze ran up to him. “You’ve split your floor. You’re going to damage yourself.”

Raoul stopped pushing and stared in disbelief. Sure enough, the granite slabs of his living room floor had massive fissures running across them. The piano still hadn’t moved; but the building was starting to crumble under the force of his strength. It seemed that it had attached itself to the building. He and Katze both leaned down to take a closer look at the instrument’s legs, and there were massive fibres running over the castors and into the floor, as though it had sent down roots.

In that moment, Raoul became unusually aware of Katze, the pungent fragrance of anise and cigarettes that lingered on his clothes, the flame of his hair against the pallor of his skin, his golden eyes like the flesh of overripe plums, his slender physique, the soft wool of his sweater. From the way the Mongrel froze, it appeared that he came to the same realization and that his body had reacted instantly and viscerally to Raoul’s beauty and display of raw, physical power.

“Leave us!” The Blondie commanded his Furniture in a low, guttural voice, and Tibór immediately left, shutting the door behind him. Raoul stepped toward Katze, closing the distance between them, his eyes heavy-lidded and predatorial. 

Katze misinterpreted Raoul’s advance, fearful that he had offended his host. 

“I’m sorry, Raoul.” He stammered, apologizing. “I didn’t intend to—”

But Raoul slipped a hand behind his head, running his fingers through the glossy hair, and the other behind the small of Katze’s back, then yanked the Mongrel toward him and sealed his lips with his own. Katze was too shocked to react at first, except to push feebly against the Blondie’s beautifully sculpted torso. Raoul quelled this rebellion by pushing him onto the top of the piano and sliding over, a knee between his thighs, trapping him between his arms before the slighter man could think to wriggle free. 

Intuitively, Raoul bit Katze’s lower lip, drawing it through his teeth, then pushed his tongue into his mouth. At this new invasion, Katze moaned and Raoul felt all the resistance drain from him. Both of them could feel each other’s erections bulging against the restrictive cloth of their trousers, both felt the desperate need to free themselves from these constraints, but neither desired to break off the battle of their lips and teeth and tongues. Raoul felt Katze’s hands tangle in his hair.

Finally he tore his mouth away long enough to grab the hem of Katze’s sweater and wrestle it over the man’s head. His skin seemed translucent, like marble, and looked cool, but felt warm and soft to the touch. The Elite’s formal costume was a nuisance. The outer tailcoat was easily discarded, but both he and Katze struggled to unweave the cravat and unbutton the dress shirt, Raoul growling like a lion with his teeth fixed in the neck of an exotic red and white zebra. Between them, they only managed to bare his chest and muscular abdomen before abandoning the attempt altogether, so immediate was the urge to close their embrace. Their naked chests smashed together, damp with perspiration. 

Katze rolled his hips, rubbing them against Raoul’s erection, gasping with the intensity of resurrected sensuality throughout his body. The sensation was so electric that Raoul couldn’t tell if it burnt or froze. He only knew that he had to grind his own cock against the other man and didn’t even want to break free long enough to loosen their pants. So intent were they on rubbing their hips against each other, that they didn’t notice how their bodies inched across the piano’s glossy surface, until Katze’s head slipped over the far edge. This time, Raoul really attached his mouth to the exposed flesh, sucking at the skin and leaving a trail of teethmarks.

Now the urge to feel their nakedness was the most overpowering compulsion. Raoul ran his hands down the length of Katze’s torso, pulling the man back so that his head and neck were fully supported, and continuing until he reached his belt. Katze was unbuckled, unbuttoned and unzipped so quickly that it didn’t register until the naked skin of his cock touched Raoul’s. The golden man bucked his hips in a response so ferocious, so heated—once, twice, five or six times that, with a shout of triumph, Katze came. 

In the succession of erratic afterstrokes, Raoul arched his back and, with a shudder that ran the length of his body, released his seed onto Katze’s stomach, then collapsed. They lay, heavy and exhausted, sucking in great mouthfuls of air, purged of thought and cleansed of all but the most tranquil feelings and surprise. 

Quite a lot of surprise, as it turned out. After Raoul recovered enough to pull himself off Katze, he reclined on one arm, tossed his hair over shoulder, and stared intently at Katze’s face. He was so pleased he was unable not to grin—a tentative, lopsided grin that looked like it was arguing with itself—and with such a bewildered and wide-eyed amazement that the other man burst into laughter. 

“I ... never expected that to happen,” was the only thing the Blondie could think of to say.

“No!” Katze chuckled and, then, grinned back, evidently every bit pleased as Raoul.

“Are you alright? I didn’t break anything when I ... er, pounced on you, did I?”

“I’m fine, Raoul. I feel terrific. Best ever, in fact.”

“Is that right?” And the grin turned into a straightforward smile. “The washroom is through that door over there if you want to clean up.”

Katze accepted the hand up. Before he left, Raoul was compelled to say, “I really was concerned about your safety. That’s why I invited you to stay, not so I could—”

“I know. I’m completely cool with what happened. In fact, I’m much happier it worked out like this. Thankyou.”

“You’re welcome, and ... and I thank you, Katze.”

After the Mongrel left, Raoul walked over to his bedroom door and used the ensuite to clean himself up. He kept shaking his head, wondering what had gotten into him. When he returned, it was to find Tibór in a state.

“Paviter has found something which will concern you, Lord Am.”

Raoul nodded and followed Tibór to the front vestibule where he found Paviter holding the unconscious Hilarion Fyss. The Sapphire Elite’s face was ghostly white, with trails of dried blood running along his hairline, past his temples and down his neck. Raoul immediately knelt beside the man, and started to time his pulse.

“What happened? Where did you find him?”

“In the second level of the parking garage,” the Car explained. “He had been dropped into an incineration chute, but became wedged, fortunately. I found him during the second sweep, and brought him here for your attention first, since your medical skills—”

“Say no more. I understand. However, he needs more than my care right now. Call the shock-trauma medics.” Raoul knelt back on his haunches. “So he was attacked right in Eos Tower. Jupiter will not be pleased.”


	5. Music from The Holocaust Piano

After the shock-trauma unit had stabilized Hilarion and taken him to the Elite Medical Facility, Raoul noticed Katze swaying on his feet and banished his new Pet to bed.

“Strange as this may seem, I’ve looked after my own health since I was a child,” Katze grumped.

“Don’t bother to get up until you’ve slept thoroughly.” Raoul brushed some imaginary lint off his sleeve. “Tibór will make sure there’s something wholesome and delicious ready for you to eat when you wake up. Satisfied?”

“Are you also going to make him wipe my—” Katze bit off the crude reply. He suddenly remembered the services to Pets that Iason had commanded from him when he was a Furniture and didn’t want to plant any ideas in Raoul’s head. That, and the killer backhands that Blondies never hesitated to use whenever they felt their dignity had been slighted. Besides, vulgar remarks reminded him too much of how Riki used to needle Iason. They offended Katze’s sense of grace, and his subversive feelings ranged suspiciously close to the desire to please. 

Please? That insufferable Elite?

He snapped his lips shut and stalked to his new bedroom, bristling at the complacent approval that sheltered within Raoul’s flawless green eyes. Eyes that caught everything, every nuance. Blondies had a way of feeling entitled to sacrifice, like gifts were their due. Katze conveniently chose to forget about Raoul’s protection and hospitality, since these had been imposed upon him anyway. He would be damned if he ever willingly had sex with the tyrant again. No more of this sweetness and cooperation bullshit!

As Raoul walked over the rubble of his ruined floor to his strange piano, urgency and impatience gnawed at him, filling his thoughts with chaos and recklessness. He needed to sift through them, to make sense of the past two days’ events—had it only been two days? Yet time was something he sensed he didn’t have. Action seemed to be called for. Immediate action. But what sort? What was he supposed to do? And where were all these feelings coming from? The dream sequences about sex with Iason! As for amorous feelings towards Mongrels and ex-Furniture, the very thought almost made him writhe with mortification. Best not to think about it at all. Raoul forced his mind to other subjects.

Hilarion had been so messed-up. With the amount of blood he lost, he could very easily be brain damaged, and such a refined mind at that. Nor was it only Hilarion’s capacity for pure, clear thought that was at stake; of any Elite Raoul had ever met, he was the least inclined to falsity. Here was fresh realization for the Blondie, the true reason he returned to that Elite’s art gallery again and again: Raoul could not recall a single insincere or calculating act from the Sapphire. Even his flattery had always seemed heartfelt. The thought that these qualities might be lost forever because of this attack filled him with—he paused to think about that, exactly—with anguish. Another feeling.

Could Jupiter fully restore him? Even with his Elite capacity to heal, even with the most superb medical attention Tanagura could provide—attention which Raoul had demanded without compromise—he Sapphire’s exquisite face and body would show terrible scars, no question. What a bitter fate for someone who had so loved beauty!

The computer would probably manage to recover most of the injured Elite’s lower brain functions. But would Jupiter deem the more ineffable qualities important enough to save the ones that had made Hilarion so…individual!—so particularly fine? From his past merges with that cybernetic mass, Raoul doubted it. It was precisely those subtleties which Jupiter couldn’t seem to grasp.

Not since Iason’s death had Raoul experienced such frustration, such loss. Never had he felt so confounded by Jupiter’s shortcomings. He gathered all his grief and rage into his fists and drove them down onto the piano top, filling his suite with an orchestral thunder. If only he knew how to break through Jupiter’s limitations—that trap, that prison! If only he could force that profane, confined awareness to evolve. There had to be some way…some power…

Could this pianoforte be the means?

His attention shifted to marvel once more at the instrument’s perfection—how, in spite of having borne the brunt of his fury, its surface remained glassy and undamaged.

So many strange things had happened since it had shown up, including the mystery of how it had stitched itself with strange fibres to Eos Tower. What were those things anyway? 

Raoul couldn’t help wondering if these events and oddities were interconnected as Katze had implied. He hated most not having enough data to draw sound conclusions. With each passing hour, it seemed more likely that the pianoforte carried some sort of strange force, one which Raoul couldn’t quite accept as destructive.

Could this masterpiece be some sort of Holocaust Piano, set to unleash a pestilence onto Amoi? Was their planet to follow the unhappy fate of Thallë?

Not all the strange events which had happened were sinister, if the changes to his body and Katze’s were any indication. The weird fibres, the threats to Katze’s spy network, the murder of his agent’s contact in Solares Geophysics, and the attack on Hilarion Fyss were. Yet the threats and attacks could have come from another source, if what Katze had said was true, that the Federation was embroiled in a cover-up. Raoul pushed himself away from the piano. This required immediate action.

“Tibór!” Raoul called.

Within seconds, the Furniture was at hand.

“Tell the Car to leave Katze’s personal effects in the west room. Paviter can reinstall them under his guidance after he wakes up. Do you know when he is due from Midas?”

“He would’ve returned ten minutes ago, Lord Am,” the furniture explained, “But called to say he was held up in traffic just north of the Main Gate. Constables have now been conscripted to direct the flow, so I expect his imminent return.”

“Indeed?” This strange news startled the Elite. “What was that all about?”

“Sir Serge Renaud has tried to contact you about these irregularities. As you were busy with the aid to Sir Hilarion, his messages were redirected to your comm-link.”

“I see. Thank you.”

“Did you have any further instructions for me or your Car, my Lord?”

“Yes,” this latest news had distracted him. Raoul recovered his concentration, “Inform Paviter the moment he arrives: I require a list of Federation members who have visited Eos over the past week. I need to know where they went, with whom they’ve met, and what their business is here. I want careful attention paid to those with---gaps in their surveillance records.”

Tibór bowed and left.

Raoul wasn’t quite ready to face his business and administrative associates just yet. This was the first time since the ride back from Kalga 84 that morning that he had had time to think. The fact that it was Serge Renaud who monitored the situation eased his concerns. He had the utmost confidence in the Platina; as one of his canniest chess opponents, Serge had proven his skill for strategy often enough. The fact that constables had already been assigned to uphold order showed that he was in control.

As Raoul absentmindedly ran his hands over the smooth finish of the piano, his memory jumped to the pleasing image of Katze outstretched beneath him, the astonishment and delight that had lit up the Mongrel’s delicate features, the softness of his hair and smoothness of his skin, his long, lithe body with its supple muscles trembling under his hands. What a maze of opposing feelings this brought up! The images enflamed Raoul’s desire to possess him. He had never enjoyed the experience of pressing another man into compliance so personally.

He smiled wryly. The Mongrel had bared his teeth when ordered to bed that morning, the faintest whiff of that rough Ceres spirit Iason so enjoyed taming. Clearly Raoul wasn’t the only one teetering in contradiction about their sexual encounter. He realized that the haste with which he and Katze had fallen into sex had left him uneasy. Splinters of anxiety irritated him, especially with how senselessly he had dropped his self-control, something which had never happened before. 

So out of character was that outburst for either of them, he reckoned some mysterious agency could’ve precipitated it, possibly even the same one that had changed their physical bodies and keyed up that part of his mind which could dream. 

But if it was the pianoforte which had caused this, would this not have been one of the good effects? The last time he had felt so relaxed and comfortable in his body was when he had dreamt about Iason. Yes, those dreams ... still very disturbing. Yet he truly felt wonderful, full of vitality and positive energy. Why? Was this the lull before the storm?

Raoul considered the information which Katze had shared the evening just past.

“Nothing. Probably nothing. Most likely no connection at all,”he had said, but he hadn’t taken the chance that it was nothing. He had passed along his every guess, even though he had nothing, no proof, no evidence to verify it. “Rumours of disasters striking some of its satellite colonies, priestesses of Tenebrios working with massive black keyboards that fit this description…” That horrifying holostream of the Ruin of Thallë and his last conversation with that smuggler, Merc, which he had recorded on the same device. 

What good fortune to have acquired such clever allies! Raoul now directed his thoughts toward how best to keep Katze. More importantly, how to keep him safe.

With a quiet knock at the door, Tibór returned bearing a breakfast tray of fruit, croissants, cheese and coffee. 

“Your Car has returned and is engaged with your new assignment, Lord Am,” he spoke quietly. “There seems to be trouble with Jupiter’s surveillance records.”

“I will look into it, Tibór, but first, I require some ... items,” he sighed, wondering how best to word his instructions. “Items of a somewhat unorthodox nature.”

The furniture nodded his compliance.

“Our guest needs an entirely new wardrobe. His clothing is ... inappropriate.”

“I can provide Sir Katze with the best designs available from the Pet supply shops in Apatia, master.”

“No! That is exactly what I do not want. He must not look like a Pet, or even a citizen. It would lead to too many awkward questions. He needs freedom to work without interference. He must be able to blend in with the Elite society without attracting unwanted attention. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“Dispose of all but a few items of his old clothing. Store them away in the event he needs plainclothes to move among citizens and mongrels incognito but, while he remains in Eos, he shall be required to wear bespoke formal attire.”

“My lord?” The Furniture said tentatively. For the first time since he was purchased, Tibór’s lifted his gaze directly into his master’s. It was the first time Raoul noticed his chocolate brown eyes, eyelashes and eyebrows which contrasted rather nicely with his honey coloured hair---not much different than his own. He really was a very nice-looking furniture. What a pity he had been damaged. Raoul decided he would order him to learn how to play the pianoforte later. 

Raoul waved a hand to hurry along the pace of his Furniture’s speech. He half-expected the man to tell him he was mad.

“There is the matter of his complexion and—well, the length of his hair.”

“Yes. Fortunately, we can work around that. Contact the late Lord Mink’s costumier for a single thigh-length hairpiece in pure red that can be worked into Katze’s existing style, and cosmetics for a dark ivory complexion.” Since the previous First Blondie often disguised himself to travel unnoticed, there was no reason why his supplier would feel suspicious about these items. “If Katze objects when you apply them, you may call upon me. He is not to give you a hard time about it.”

Tibór looked startled; Elite masters so seldom backed up their commands with tangible promises of support.

“Do you have anything further to add?” Raoul asked.

Tibór shook his head. 

“As for his name—” Raoul glanced around the room for anything that might sound plausible. He thought about his new pet’s insolence that morning, both during the exam at Kalga 84 and when he was ordered to bed. A slow mocking smile curled across his lips when his eyes fell upon the arrangement of fruits which Tibór had placed on his breakfast tray. His fingers hovered over a lovely, ripe peach and nearly took the plunge. Instead, he shifted over a little, picked up a cluster of green grapes and popped a couple in his mouth, relishing their chilled sweetness. After swallowing, he chuckled, “If anyone should ask, his name is Sir Katze ... Gripe.”

That should teach him not to whine. He would resolve the issue of citizen passkeys later.

That settled, Raoul directed his thoughts to the next issues.

Jupiter. He rubbed his forehead. His next project had to be an audience with the supercomputer. He was amazed it hadn’t demanded his attendance yet. Raoul walked over to his computer.

As the screen’s soft yellow light reflected in his eyes, the old frown harried his forehead. His comm-link was jammed with hundreds of messages, many of which appeared to be distress calls from members of the Elite. Raoul flicked through the masses of holostream recordings, barely able to contain his disbelief. 

It appeared Tanagura was cavitating. 

Message after message attested to a cataclysm of planetary proportions.

As morning rush-hour had set in, the transit tunnel system which connected Eos with Guardian and all the suburbs of Tanagura had shut down. This was undoubtedly the source of the traffic problems that had beset Serge and delayed Paviter.

The clone-nurseries beneath Guardian had undergone a comparable systemic failure, and this was very serious. Although legions of androids had been activated to maintain the life-support systems; it seemed that they were starting to malfunction.

There were frantic messages from the Environmental and Atmospheric Monitoring Agency which had taken over the original Amoian terraform-engineering projects; the aetheric filtration system had fallen offline. The cyanophytic layer of the ocean was in danger of being poisoned, which meant no fresh supply of oxygen for the entire planet.

Androids had also been stationed at the Tanagura Interplanetary Spaceport, and were re-routing incoming flights to the colonies and grounding all the outgoing flights. Without a properly functioning Spaceport, Amoi’s entire trade network was in danger of collapse. Tanagura and other cities depended on those flights for fresh food and other essential supplies.

Dozens upon dozens of distress calls had been fielded from Tanagura Commerce and Mercantile, as their cash registers stopped recognizing citizen passkeys or credits---well, that was a nuisance, but not critical. As Raoul cycled through page after page of holostream messages from that branch of the Syndicate, his irritation started to grow. Unlike the other problems, these ones weren’t the end of the world. Sadly, the Alliance was vocal and dominated a major section of Tanaguran society. He would have to deal with them either very carefully or very thoroughly. 

Raoul’s eyes flicked across the name of the Alliance CEO, a Jade by the name of Xavier Rex, who he remembered from a few pet-parties as being especially fawning and self-important. Had he allowed his personal feelings to interfere with his role as First Blondie of the Tanaguran Syndicate, Raoul would’ve ended all dealings with Rex ages ago; he so disliked the Jade. Instead he stuffed that glut of complaint into one fat folder and put it aside for later. 

Where was Jupiter during all this?

Raoul tried to connect to his private channel with the sentient supercomputer, but instead of linking through, his terminal crashed. He managed to re-boot it, but everytime he tried to make the connection, the same thing happened. He could only conclude that his attempts were being blocked. What was happening? An icicle of dread trickled over his heart.

This would explain Paviter’s problems accessing Jupiter’s surveillance files. 

Raoul also wondered if these system failures extended to medical facilities, and whether that meant Hilarion’s healing was at stake. A quick call to the Elite Facility put his fears to rest. Although he had not yet regained consciousness, his vital signs were stable and regenerabots had been activated. He was now recovering under monitor in the intensive care unit.

Raoul decided to contact the new Second Blondie, the mysterious Za-Zen Lau, who managed the cloning operations under Guardian, Herbay and Mistral Park—those that had not been destroyed during the collapse of Dana Bahn. His situation was quite possibly the direst of all.

Lau’s face was even more obscured by wild tendrils of flaxen hair than Raoul’s; the man’s high cheekbones and gray, single-lidded eyes were almost completely hidden by the bright yellow strands.

“Explain,” Raoul commanded.

“Androids have taken control of the laboratories.” 

“And why is this a problem?”

Lau checked over his shoulder to make sure no one else was listening in. He proceeded to speak in hushed tones, and Raoul guessed at his reasons. Under other circumstances, his message could be construed as the highest treason. “It appears Jupiter has been compromised and has started emitting virulent tautologies through the planetary DataStream. Any intelligence whose executive functions are dependent upon connection to the cyber net is freezing up or malfunctioning in other more dangerous ways. I haven’t got enough human specialists to replace the cyborgs or androids. We are in grave danger of losing our life-support regulators which control temperature, oxygen levels, nutrients, filtration and circulation, ph levels….”

“Worse-case scenario?” Raoul asked.

“Obvious, if unthinkable, is it not? Guardian becomes a crypt.”

Raoul now understood Lau’s barely concealed strain and desperation. Something drastic would be required to keep the organisms within Guardian’s giant fluid-filled phials alive. Mistral Park would rival mythic Gehenna if the animal life beneath it started to die and decompose. As for the plants under Herbay, entire species were irreplaceable; their extinction would deprive millions of food and medicine. 

Well, not for nothing was Raoul the best biotechnician in Amoi. He knew immediately what to do. “You now have the authority to re-route power from the sea-turbine stations off the Hauravon Gulf.”

Blondie or not, Lau could no longer hold in a noisy exhale of relief. The Hauravon power supply would at least keep the life-support regulators stable and, since it ran along the old-fashioned electrical cables strung back in the original terraform era, it was not subject to computerized transmission failures. But this power came at a cost: “And our telecommunication satellites?”

“Those are not our first priority, Lau. Besides, there is more than enough battery power to continue the satellite transmissions for another 24 hours or so. Our comm-links can be rewired to the old radio tower systems afterward if need be.”

“As you wish.”

“In the event of full power failure, how many of our ‘children’ will be capable of living without artificial support?”

“Less than two per cent are pre-natal under natural birth conditions, about 200 fetuses in all. They would not be able to live without life-support. I estimate about 2000 fall under the infant to toddler stage, requiring immediate natal care and supervision. There are, however, incalculable numbers of Apheliotrophs, our poor Deus ex Machina, who cannot survive outside. Not that they have much chance if their links to the cyberhive are corrupted.”

Raoul could barely keep his head from sinking into his hands. “An educated guess?”

Lau shook his head, “Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Based on the numbers that failed to make it into the Overworld last year, as calculated over the past, let’s say, fifty years, it could be millions. I have no idea what their life-span is.”

Deus ex Machina, the darkest secret of Tanagura, the artificially born children who never made it to the world of light, but disappeared into the darkness under Amoi’s crust and spent the hopeless eternity of their lives in bondage to Jupiter’s machines. They were why the Elite had been genetically engineered and socially conditioned not to feel, for how else could a human being surmount such despair?

Raoul had only seen the Underworld once by the light of infrared spectacles and had measured every description of hell against it thereafter. It surpassed Laocón for torture, as human minds and bodies were fractured and bonded to machine and all feeling subjugated under that cold, impersonal will. Raoul wondered if the name, Deus ex Machina, had been bestowed by Jupiter as some form of cosmic joke, but for the fact that it lacked any discernable sense of humour.

There was generally nothing wrong with the minds or bodies of the humans that were sentenced to this fate. They were spares. Everyone Jupiter needed to fulfill its purposes in the Overworld had already been selected. The others were consigned to darkness. The thought that Raoul had ‘brothers’ almost identical to him in every physical respect who were torn apart and melded with machines was harsh. What sort of sentience, if any, would they have? Were they even human anymore?

In a way, Raoul mused, it wasn’t much different from the holostream Katze’s agent had sent of the miner consumed by strange parasites on Thallë. No difference at all except for the form of the invader. This was Jupiter’s vision for Amoi.

A new Unthinkable shot through Raoul’s mind like a current of lightning. He had known, as he now realized Iason had also known, as had every human taken to his laboratory to have their minds wiped, that their society could not exist indefinitely under such darkness. Amoi, with Tanagura at its helm, had slowly spun toward melt-down for years.

It seemed everyone even realized this, lived with the awareness at the back of their minds. The Furniture, the Mongrel caretakers of Guardian, Katze, the citizens of Midas had all been co-opted. Those who hadn’t or whose ancestors hadn’t were slowly being starved out. 

The only change was that something had pushed the process of degeneration forward by interfering with Jupiter. And was that such a terrible thing? With Jupiter in control, no change was possible. Perhaps the best thing Raoul could do was subtly direct the process of freeing Amoi from that half-crazed mechanical sentience. But at what cost? Could he sacrifice those lives? Even his courage quailed at that prospect. 

Oh, Iason, why did you have to die at this time?

Was this what his dreams foretold? That he, following Iason’s initial direction, would be on the first waves of a new life for Amoi? But that in order to do it, he would have to abandon all his conditioning as First Blondie, Seneschal of Jupiter, like an outmoded suit of clothes? A certain thrill of recognition charged his mind. By proving that no Elite, not even Blondies, were immune from human feeling, Iason and Riki had led the way. It was up to him to follow through, but how was he to accomplish it without becoming the next Avatar of Death? 

And how much could he trust Za-Zen Lau? 

In a strange way, the choice was already out of Raoul’s hands. There was no need for further thought. He merely had to act.

“Make no move while the androids maintain control,” he instructed the Second Blondie. “But test their coherence by frequently asking them for direction.”

Lau’s spine straightened. His eyes took on a fierce, proud quality, almost primal in its fervency. 

“You know the direction of my thoughts, don’t you?”

“I am your loyal and discreet servant, Lord Am.”

“Excellent. I must cultivate the proper response from the Overworld.”

“If I might suggest ... .”

“Always. Speak freely.”

“It isn’t yet time to remove all controls. Those Pets who are not yet overly dependent upon aphrodisiacs and other stimulants may still make acceptable parents. They will, of course, rebel but their slave-rings still function. Apatia would serve us better as a nursery, than a brothel and, with that one, small adjustment, I estimate we could salvage about twenty per cent of our newborn population.”

“To manage this without the situation disintegrating into outright chaos,” Raoul replied dryly, unable to suppress the smile crinkling at the corners of his eyes, “you would be obligated to place Mongrels in positions of authority over our Pets, both those that presently manage Guardian and our beautiful, well-trained Furnitures.”

Lau’s smile had an almost frightening intensity of mirthlessness. Raoul was comforted to know he was not the only Blondie who found the existence of Pets insupportable. He was also relieved that he had won the respect, not the enmity of the Second Blondie.

“So be it!” The First Blondie replied. “Instruct our bio-tech Sapphires and Jades to fashion incubators which aren’t dependent on the DataStream. Save the children whose faculties were deemed best fit for the Overworld first, and the ornamental Pets last. Perhaps a quick death for the Apheliotrophs would be most merciful. I prefer an alternative solution, however. Our goal is no casualties.”

“I will keep working on it.”

“I trust you, Lau. I shall also contrive additional support for your efforts. Keep me informed.”

Lau nodded grimly, and signed off.

Raoul stared blankly at the console for a few moments before sinking his head into his hands. What had he done? Had he, First Blondie, actually instigated a revolution? Based on a dream about sex with Iason? He, who had never acted rashly in his entire life? He had gone completely mad. There was no way Jupiter would refrain from having his mind wiped now. Especially if Lau betrayed him. IfLau intended to betray him. And if Jupiter ever managed to recover. 

Could Lau resist the lure of the potential pay-off? Raoul had when it was about Iason’s deviance, but then he had secretly loved Iason. He doubted very much that the Second Blondie felt so inclined toward him. On top of everything else Raoul had to fix, forestall and plan, here was yet another matter which required strategy. He lifted his face toward the ceiling—an expanse which stretched in glassy heights so far above him that it seemed to blend with the sky—and groaned with disbelief and anxiety. 

Just as Raoul considered that he could really use a change of luck about now, a name from the line of messages clogging his comm-link terminal jumped out at him: Hazall, the Federation Ambassador to Tanagura! And the time signature indicated that the message had been sent while Raoul was at Kalga 84 with Katze, so the problems with Jupiter hadn’t yet started. Raoul tapped the tips of his fingers together, deep in thought. 

So Iason hadn’t managed to dispose of him after the botched assassination attempt at Parthea after all. Probably because he was more concerned about his Pet’s safety at that point.

Raoul clicked on the message, which turned out to be an invitation. Why would Hazall be so anxious to meet with him all of sudden out of the blue like that? 

He pushed the bell to summon Paviter.

“This is the Federation suspect to investigate.”

“The Emissary.”

“Yes, although it is highly unlikely that he was at the scene of the crime. He has invited me out for dinner. I think it’s necessary I attend in order to learn the nature of his business.”

“You will require the most advanced security precautions?”

“Naturally, although we cannot send a holomasked android in my place. So…the most advanced security precautions shy of not attending the dinner meeting at all.”

“I understand.”

“Excellent. That is all for now.”

Paviter nodded and left.

Raoul clicked through the remaining mass of holostream recordings left on his comm-link. Even though the most critical peril was the thinning level of oxygen over the planet, he decided to connect with his friend, Serge Renaud, first. A conversation with someone who did not view him as direct competition for Jupiter’s affections or the big prize at the top of the social stepladder was just the sort of fortification he needed before listening to more onerous associates.

Serge oversaw the administration of all matters regarding transportation and traffic, so the Spaceport fell partly under his jurisdiction. At least the part which concerned Raoul most, which was the flow of spaceships in and out of their planetary atmosphere.

Serge’s facial features were textbook Platina. He had piercing lapis-blue eyes and almost lambent, petal-white skin tinged with pink like apple blossoms, although no one would ever dare say so to his face. Not unless they wanted some devious, very public, very humiliating trick crashing down upon them when least expected.

There was the incident of the Jade, who shortly after comparing him to ‘spent Furniture’, was cited for harassing police with prank complaints about a ghost haunting his bathroom, a specter he still insisted had materialized while he took a shower. Another involved a Platina who found, during his annual party—typically the sort of overly precious affair that drove Raoul to thinking in binary code—that his tailored suit of the finest linen and merino serge had suddenly morphed into a sparkly red ballgown and the huge epaulets sprouted blue feathers, so that he looked like one of the gypsy ‘showgirls’ turned away at Amoi Immigration Control. Moreover, while the guests still gaped in disbelief, the shipment of Academy Pets he had ordered for his party was discovered to be a series of truly atrocious gene-spliced seconds, the sort usually terminated or consigned to brothels catering to the most depraved tastes. Moreover, his signature was on the waybill. It was the first time in years that Raoul had actually laughed—albeit quietly and to himself, having no desire to pour petrol on a feud. Although Serge was the main suspect—and Raoul teased him endlessly for the secret of such apt transformations over the appearance and texture of fabric—he never admitted to anything and no one had ever caught him at it.

Unlike other Platinas, Serge eschewed silver, blue and charcoal hued clothing in favour of warmer yellows, browns and greens in elegant, form-fitting lines without rigid tailoring. This made him appear casual and, at one time, Raoul would’ve considered his style disrespectful. Certainly, some of the more orthodox Elite viewed it as such, but no one else could have carried it off. It worked because Serge was so adept at winning confidence and no one could fault his job performance. When that vibrant face appeared on his screen, looking for all the world as though the day’s calamities were just another wild motorbike race, Raoul relaxed in his chair, a smile crooking the corners of his mouth.

“I need details,” he said.

“The streets were jammed with grid-lock,” Serge replied, “but I’ve removed a few dozen Onyx from behind their desks and put them to work as peace officers at key intersections, directing traffic with hand signals.”

“Positively mediæval!” Raoul chuckled, knowing exactly how the black-haired mandarins would react. It was a strange fact of Tanaguran society that conceit was often conversely related to how much power one actually held.

Serge’s eyes lit up. “Yes? The volume of their outrage diminished when it was suggested that non-Elite citizens might enjoy those desk jobs and find those padded chairs just grand.”

“And if it becomes necessary to replace a few of those ‘pawns’ with a more effective ‘knight’ or ‘bishop’, you have my full support.” Then Raoul asked, “Do you have any idea why this is happening?”

“It seems Jupiter’s holostream recording units were knocked offline at the time the tunnels failed.”

This gave him a jolt. “Indeed?”

“I have teams of Rubies and Jades running tests, but there is no executive administrative direction getting through. As you know, Jupiter drove its tentacles pretty thoroughly through our metro system. At last report, it appears there is an alien fibre running through our connections and it’s a direct interference with Jupiter’s signals.”

“An alien ... fibre? Did I hear that right?” Alarm pricked his nerves. “Describe.”

“It has to be a biological, because it’s growing, displacing Jupiter’s mineral fibre-optics. It has taken over the entire information transmission system. But, so far, our old-fashioned copper electrical wiring appears to be untouched. So regular electrical currents still function.”

Raoul’s eyes flew immediately to his pianoforte. If the instrument was causing this, it was a definite black mark against the thing. Enough of one to make the small personal miracles he had witnessed insignificant. It had been the very thing he most feared when Hilarion first brought it to his awareness, the Trojan Horse.

“Send samples to Kalga 39 for analysis.”

“That was the first thing I attempted,” Serge replied calmly. “Unfortunately, the fibres have proven stronger than anything with which we’ve previously dealt. One of the technicians was consigned to the medical facility when he attempted to sever the cord with a welder’s arch, our first and only injury so far.”

“How did that happen?”

“The current turned against him, cut off one of his fingers.” The Platina wore a sardonic smile, “and simultaneously cauterized both the wound and the severed finger so there was no blood loss; the surgeon can still re-attach it. It has inspired greater caution from my employees, however. They aren’t so hasty to attack.”

“It also appears to validate your premise that the fibre is biological. The power surge that repelled the arch could’ve been a self-defensive reflex.” Raoul did not want to pursue this line of reasoning further. Sentient objects were not so strange in this world, but the thought that this one might’ve consciously chosen to cauterize wounds veered a little too close to the terrain of horror stories for the Blondie’s comfort. 

“You don’t seem surprised, Lord Am.”

“‘Raoul’, please. No, I’m not. I suspect they are the same fibres which ruptured the floor tiles throughout my main hall.”

“Sorry? What was that?”

Raoul expelled his breath noisily. His connection to the pianoforte left him feeling terribly exposed, even if customs and smuggling were overseen by a different contingent of Elite. He wasn’t quite ready to confess to his part in it. Evasiveness seemed the best tactic, most of the story, not all of it.

“There are similar fibres running through the floor of my suite. They’ve burst out from under a musical instrument in my collection, like tree roots. When I attempted to remove it manually, I cracked the stone tiles into splinters, but neither the instrument nor the fibres were damaged.”

For a good two to three minutes, Serge was rendered speechless. Raoul suspected it wasn’t merely the strangeness of the event, but the inadvertent admission of Blondie strength that confounded him. Serge’s own physical prowess would be impressive compared to ordinary men, but Blondies could take other men’s breaths away. It was a testament to Raoul’s self-control that he did not squirm.

Finally, the Silver spluttered, “What ... why ... er, when did this extraordinary thing happen?”

“Just this morning. I was attempting to move an antique pianoforte nearer to the windows and discovered, belatedly, that it was bound to my floor with these strange fibres. Right after that, all hell broke loose.”

“All hell! There’s more?”

“Indeed but, first, tell me what else you’ve accomplished.”

“Fortunately, the old solar-energy battery system was never dismantled, so the traffic guidance streamlines will be up and running again fairly soon.”

Raoul thought of the medical centre. “Emergency vehicles—?”

“Are being routed through without delay. That was our immediate focus.”

“Excellent. Do you have a contingency plan ready should that system fail?”

“Yes, shift-rotations of Onyx peace officers.”

Raoul nodded. Two fingers of the Silver’s hand tapped against the arm of his comfortable suede chair, a sign that something did not sit easily with him. Raoul had noticed for quite some time he always did this when he was about to castle his king or launch some other defensive maneuver.

The Blondie finally became tired of waiting for him, and asked. “What about the androids?”

“They haven’t responded at all to the traffic problems. As for the Spaceport ...,” Serge’s voice trailed.

“I wouldn’t count on their intervention, at least not in a manner that is safe or even coherent.”

The Silver looked down at his hands and, realizing he was nervously tapping one, folded them in his lap, as though it would bolster his resolve to say something potentially treasonous. “At the Spaceport, they have been erratic in their performance. Their only consistent action had been to ground all outgoing flights and refuse clearance to all incoming vessels. Our allies in the Federation are in an uproar. I, for one, am in a quandary about how to deal with it.

“What is going on, Raoul? What is Jupiter trying to accomplish?”

“I can understand your predicament, Serge. Stand down at the Spaceport for now. Ready your Sapphire teams to man the controls should the androids fail completely.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“Jupiter has undergone what appears to be a catastrophic fatal error. Anything which depends upon it for executive functions has been failing or malfunctioning dangerously. I have just finished a similar conversation with Za-Zen Lau regarding the Underworld ... .”

“The Underworld! God help us.”

“Precisely. After I finish with our communication, I will no doubt be dealing with a similar situation regarding our environmental controls and other systems. And somewhere in the midst of this, I shall have to arrange a meeting of all the Blondies in order to see what can be done to restore Jupiter, if anything.” That is, he thought, if I can ever see my way clear from putting out these wildfires.

Serge replied, “I see. Is there anything further I can do?”

“Keep up with what you’ve been doing. I think the important thing right now is to monitor the disintegration process in the android functions.” If he moved too quickly, there was a fifty-fifty chance that the androids would compute an insurrection---which, strictly speaking, it was---and react with force. Raoul told him, “If you attempt to override them now, they will attack you. So stand down until their failure is complete, and hope to heaven that they order no midair collisions. The last thing we want is to provoke an interplanetary incident should the androids activate the CyberFleet.”

“Is there no way we can send out warning signals?”

Right! Pick an argument with Jupiter’s Prætorian CyberGuard, Raoul could see how effective that would be. Mind, every Spaceport had quarantine signals to keep ships from landing, which would essentially provide the same results. Trouble was, they needed those shipments of food and medicines, and it was like putting out a colossal sign for the more aggressive members of the Federation showing that Amoi was vulnerable.

Then he considered Katze’s connections in the black market, smugglers and traders who had circumvented the worldwide straitjacket of computer control. Perhaps there was another way after all. 

It made sense to use Katze. The environment of Ceres and the Guardian could only help but cultivate the skills required for these desperate circumstances. In order to survive, one would have to be a quick-study, to adapt and improvise, to tackle difficult tasks without balking over something so petty as one’s personal ego. The luxuries of Midas, the glass walls of Eos, all sparkling and bright, had a double-edged quality. The humans here seemed to have all that wild, unpredictable, adaptable spirit bred or trained out of them. Almost bred or trained out of them, he tossed a spare thought to Iason. But was he, himself, one of these sorry creatures? Not anymore, he decided. 

“As secretively as you can, activate the quarantine signal. Let us be marked as a Plague-planet.”

Serge had never looked so shaken, “It’s that serious?”

“Of course not,” Raoul explained. “It is a strategy to ward off unnecessary traffic until we can secure the Port. Yet it still allows us to receive shipments of food and medicine and other forms of aid under the Interplanetary Humane Transport Convention.”

“But no one will send us these items if we are unable to maintain trade at our end.”

“Yes, I realize this. I have a plan for that as well.” 

Katze could implement new trading channels through his allies. The hypocritical members of the Federation, who paid lip service to human rights while partaking lavishly on the sly in Amoi’s Pet trade, and Jupiter’s Elite would simply have to deal with him. That, or find themselves shunted out. And what irony to orchestrate such a reversal of social position, the second such notion he had fielded that day, as Raoul remembered Lau’s suggestions for using Pets, Mongrels and Furniture. How quickly since the moment they’d come to know each other, had power flipped into the Mongrel’s court.

“The details still need to be finalized, but I am confident we can secure our trade channels under less conventional means.” Plus the stalling tactic would allow him time to consider new trade strategies.

He was very disappointed in the Platina’s comment, “Even if our Pets are marked as carriers? Plague-ridden?”

Raoul understood his concerns, but the man was overreacting.

“Relax, Renaud! Our trade relationships are not going to be deep-sixed over our Spaceport’s shut-down for a day or two. And once we make it clear that the quarantine signal was a glitch in a faulty, old system that has not been used or, unfortunately, deactivated since the Plague-years, I think we can squelch those rumours fairly quickly. More so than if traders, who are too anxious to spend their credits on the offerings of Midas, attempt to land against the androids and instigate the release of the CyberFleet. Do you follow me?”

“Perfectly.” Serge nodded, adjusting his seat, as though it had grown too warm for comfort.

“Expect a visit from me and my operative at the Spaceport sometime later today. Unless things deteriorate or change for the better, just leave a quick verbal message every hour to keep me up to speed.”

“As you wish.”

“Oh!—And Serge?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t lose your cool.”

“Come now,” a trace of the old humour flashed across his face. It was wan, not quite at full strength, but much better. “When have you ever known me to lose my cool? When it really mattered, that is.”

Raoul returned his smile and disconnected. He stood up, stretched and took a few deep breaths before addressing the next communication. If that was how his friends reacted, he didn’t want to think of how his less-favourable acquaintances would.

The great black pianoforte seemed to call to him, the sweet sounds rippling through his memory. Absentmindedly, he walked over, sat down at the bench, placed his fingers on the keys, and started to play---not a formal piece, just random minor, but pleasant chords and arpeggios which evoked his mood.

How do I communicate with you? He asked it in his thoughts, never thinking there would be an answer. His thoughts took a visual turn as his memory strayed to all the horrifying scenarios that had played through his mind that day. Images of human embryos dying under Guardian, people suffocating as the oxygen ran out, dying in fiery infernos as the CyberFleet attacked their spaceships. I know you are not completely evil. You healed Katze and me. I think you would heal everyone on this forsaken planet; so why are you destroying my world?

Two unbidden images flashed into his thoughts. The first was of the day at the gallery when, in that fit of pique about the instrument being used as a trial of loyalty by Jupiter, he had knocked the support out from the lid of the pianoforte causing it to crash with an awful atonal dischord. The second was that morning, after Hilarion had been taken to the medical facility, when he turned his fists on the instrument, filling the room again with that sound.

The echo of these sounds in his memory were like flying kicks directly hitting his solar plexus. Raoul almost doubled over at their impact. He jumped away from the piano, the stool tumbling backwards behind him. Had the instrument just given him an answer? Was that even possible? If so, this was a new very subtle and very deceptive form of speech, for how could one tell the difference between personal thoughts and images communicated into one’s mind? And if it was a form of communication, what message was it trying to convey? Perhaps the instrument was taking revenge for his misuse. Or perhaps, it only amplified the effects of sounds created during Raoul’s tantrums. He flushed with shame. Again, that lack of self-control! Or was this just another sign of madness, to even consider that a piano had sentience? Even such a remarkable piano.

Unfortunately, he had no time to think further upon it. For now the comm-link buzzed with irritating persistence. He had to attend to another crisis. The cool, haughty face of the Eighth Blondie appeared upon the screen.

“Colin,” Raoul walked over. “Status report?”

“We haven’t been able to bring the ætheric filters online, Lord Am.”

“Let me guess: There is an unknown biological fibre interfering with the cables.”

Colin Venables blinked. “We hadn’t checked. The drives are seized up with paradoxes.”

“Ah, that would’ve been my second guess.”

“In either case,” the other Blondie continued. “Smog levels are reaching a critical level.”

“What sort of action do you suggest?”

“Industrial closures, for the time being, tight restrictions on anything which generates pollutants ... .”

“I see ... knowing, of course, that this will wreak havoc all over Amoi?”

Colin wisely kept his lips sealed.

Raoul sighed. He knew what was coming. “Alright, have you coordinated your Sapphires to engineer repairs and your Jades and Rubies to bring the filtration system into order manually?”

“They are working on it as we speak.”

“Estimated time to completion?”

Colin shrugged.

“In the meantime, you have authority to shut down the power grids to all but the emergency and prison facilities in Neal Darts and other industrial complexes.”

“To be enforced, how?”

“By Emergency Law, of course.”

“It is inevitable,” Colin bowed his head, with a sulphuric whiff of insolence. “Yet, why won’t Jupiter spare us any cybernetic support?”

“It isn’t a question of what Jupiter can spare,” Raoul tried to explain. “It is Jupiter, itself, that has ... that appears to have ... who is ... .” Finally he gave up and said, “I’ve been fielding distress calls all morning.”

“Distress? Calls? Whatever for?”

“Jupiter is collapsing, Colin; you might as well know.”

“Collapsing? But ... well then, we must save it.”

“Indeed.” Raoul bit back his sarcastic retort, and found a slightly more polite way of expressing his irritation. “Presently, I am enmeshed with coordinating the efforts to save this planet from complete annihilation, but saving Jupiter is definitely on the things-to-do list. In fact, I insist that you take part in that action, now that you have the authority to close down the worst sources of noxious emissions. How long will it take you to delegate the task of cleaning our oxygen?”

The other Blondie hesitated. This turn of events did not agree at all with him and Raoul knew why. He was reluctant to come so close to anything like a Declaration of Emergency Law. It was too unpopular, too potentially damaging from a political standpoint. He preferred to sit in the shadows while others took the flak. Well, Raoul had no patience or time to deal with that. He needed a united front from his fellow Blondies, or they would be destroyed by civil unrest.

“Who is your best Platina? The most technically proficient?”

“That would be Lazare Weinberg.”

“Then he is your representative. Give him the task, and make your way back to Eos immediately. You are needed here.”

Colin scowled, preparing to argue. Raoul sighed, knowing that Colin was not even being particularly difficult, nothing to what he knew Xavier Rex of Tanaguran Commerce and Mercantile would be like.

“I wouldn’t insist if you weren’t critical to our success, don’t you know? You are our best metallurgical engineer and technician. We haven’t a hope of saving Jupiter without you.”

The flattery worked. Tension drained out of the Elite’s face like someone had pulled out a stopper. Raoul experienced a flash of sympathy for him. In so many ways, Colin Venables was like him, or as he once was: arrogant, finicky, prudent to a fault. The only thing Colin lacked, which Raoul always had, was that concern for Iason’s wellbeing, that sublimated love which had dignified his most overbearing words and gestures. It amazed him how such a small thing could make all the difference. Katze’s face from that morning on the piano leapt into his mind, and he had to forcefully push his attention back to the matter at hand.

He missed Colin’s reply, although he was sure the other Blondie had yielded; no one in their right mind argued with the First Blondie. He said, “Establish a secure holostream-link between you and Weinberg so your people’s progress can be monitored from Eos and, eventually, from Jupiter’s Tower. Be here within the hour.” 

Then he closed the connection.

Katze! What was to be his place? Raoul felt the same prickle of uneasiness about all the changes he was about to impose without consulting the other man. Of all the day’s surprises, this one delighted Raoul most: that Jupiter was collapsing, leaving him in position as Lord of Tanagura, the one to determine the line between propriety and impropriety as a mark of privilege. The fact that this was precisely what had led to Iason’s demise didn’t trouble him. Now that he held Iason’s old position, he also felt a similar recklessness toward his liaison with Katze. But here was the crux: prior to that morning, there was no question of authority; Katze had been compelled to submit. How was that authority to be enforced now, aside from barehanded force? Particularly since Raoul wasn’t all that fussed about maintaining Tanagura’s old ways.

Previously, a leader’s charisma was founded in Jupiter’s lineage of genetic supremacy and ossified social codes, through tradition, physical grace and beauty, and material strength and force. Raoul was now clear that destiny governed his actions, no matter what the personal outcome. Building consensus and support, however, could be too laborious. Tanagura’s leaders had to move quickly and decisively to save Amoi, and to be fully accountable for the results of those decisions.

The Blondie felt a little dizzy, as though he was skating across the surface of his own broken tiles. It was like swaying on the point of a fulcrum, and depending on the direction he swayed, a different abyss opened at his feet. Too far in one direction and his mind and Katze’s would be wiped into oblivion. In another, Amoi would erupt in civil war. In yet another, the Underworld, Guardian, Her Bay and Mistral Park would turn into charnel houses, followed soon by the rest of Amoi.

So how was he to win the Mongrel’s cooperation? How simpler everything had been when one could just zap others into submission with collars and rings. He had to stop thinking like that. Besides, there seemed to be other, more pleasant means of persuasion in his arsenal and that brought a smile to his lips.

“Tibór!” Raoul called, “I need the following summons dispatched to the leaders of the Tanaguran Syndicate. They are to meet here within the hour.”

The boy nodded.

“Extend one to Xavier Rex, by virtue of his position as CEO of Tanuguran Commerce and Mercantile---by the way, carbon-copy that to all members of the trade association with the note that this is not a personal invitation, but for their information purposes only so that they understand we are taking action.

“Make special note of this, Tibór: He is to wait in the foyer until we summon him, no matter what he has to say about it. If he dislikes this, express my regrets and show him the door. I have some security details to discuss about this with Paviter. Send him to me promptly.”

“Did you wish to include Sir Serge among the Syndicate leaders, my lord?”

“No, he already has his commission. When the Blondies arrive, direct them to my study and work centre, not the Great Hall. The doors to the Hall are to be locked and no one is to be permitted entry under any circumstance. Oh!—and Tibór? I would appreciate a fresh pot of coffee, when you have the chance. Order anything we need for our guests from the caterers.”

“Right away, sir.”

“You are excellent Furniture.”

The boy’s face lit up. “My pleasure.”

“After the Syndicate have arrived and settled in, and while Paviter keeps an eye on Sir Xavier, I would like you to take fifteen minutes in the Great Hall—locking the doors behind you, of course—and try your hand at playing my new pianoforte. Would you like that?”

“I—uh, don’t know. I certainly enjoy the music you make, but I-I’ve never ... .”

“I know. It takes awhile to learn music. If you like it, I will arrange for lessons.” It seemed to be Raoul’s day for leaving people speechless. He suppressed his urge to smile. “Whether or not you decide to take me up on that offer, I think you will be surprised and delighted by the results a little time playing that piano can bring. Thank you, that will be all.”

While Tibór scurried off to fetch some fresh coffee, Raoul sat back and wove his plans.


	6. Enclave of Blondies

Katze was furious. He sat draped in a thick bronze satin kimono counterwoven with sage-green monkeys, fuming and a little fearful, while Tibór painted his face and fixed his hair.

Only two days before, he had been quietly minding his own business, running a major part of Tanagura’s illicit trade with the Federation. Life was cool. Life was safe---well, relatively safe for any job which featured, as its main health hazard, assassination. His terminal and fancy security system in that bat-cave of a basement apartment made it an effective hiding place. He could interview clients, hire contractors and manage the logistics of bribes, collections, enforcement---same old same old---behind the barrier of holostream recordings, cybernet screens and force-fields. He was respected and feared and, best of all, left pretty much alone. It was---well, okay, it was a crashing bore and his brain and body were starting to creak from the lack of novelty and excitement, but it was comfortable. Most importantly, it was entirely his. 

Now another rebellious Blondie had revoked his freedom, just when he had thought himself clear. Not only had he clipped a Pet-ring on his ear, reduced him from a gangland leader, a force to be reckoned with, to a painted doll, and molested him on top of a piano---okay, so that part was quite pleasant actually---but he was actively trying to have him murdered.

That’s right. The Enclave of Blondies who, apparently, were meeting in the next room at that very moment, were going to tear Katze limb from limb the moment they stopped rolling with laughter all over Raoul’s fractured floor and realized he was not joking. They were going to react with the full-frontal, scary onslaught of their overly hybridized egos and muscles, all because Raoul turned him into some sort of cheesy copy of an Elite. 

Jupiter! He remembered how Riki had felt like a circus animal. At least Iason never tried to turn him into some sort of Eliteboy. Elite-Lite.

Katze groaned while Tibór gently blended the coppery-red wires of the hairpiece’s comb into the fringe around his scalp.

“This disguise will give you unprecedented freedoms, Sir Katze,” Tibór tried to console him. “Consider: you will have access throughout the Ruby tier of Eos, and attract no untoward attention as you conduct business with the more senior tiers.”

Well, fan-freaking-tastic! He had never wanted to conduct business with them anyway. Not after Iason’s death at Dana Bahn. Not any more than he already had to, which was minimal---limited to orders regarding Pet smuggling and other cargo.

“I’m a dead man,” Katze replied for the third time in the past five minutes.

“Do you have a pain, Katze?” a thin, metallic version of Raoul’s voice snapped in his ear.

Oh, that’s right! The Pet-ring was a transmitter and receiver. Katze was fully wired and, this time, not on caffeine. 

He choked off the comment, ‘Just a great golden bastard of one in the neck!’ and grit out the words, “Nobody’s going to be fooled. Your friends and colleagues will think I’m mocking them. They will kill me.”

“Since we’ve established that there’s nothing physically the matter with you, I am going to say this once: you will cooperate with Tibór; you will work under your new identity with all due care and attention; and we will hear no more complaints or moaning. Understood?”

“I--uh, yes fine, Raoul, but---aagh, DAMN it!” Katze cried and doubled over as Raoul zapped him. His ear felt like a swarm of bees chose to build their hive in his brains. “What the hell was that for?”

“It is too dangerous to proceed without your full cooperation,” Raoul’s voice carried over the buzzing.

“You said you weren’t going to use it!”

“No, I said I wouldn’t necessarily use it,” Raoul said. “It suddenly became necessary.”

Katze’s mind ran through the litany of every curse and epithet he could recall. As long as none of them ever crossed his lips, he figured he was safe. 

The silence held severity like the moment of impact in a car-crash.

“I’m not in the habit of explaining myself to anyone,” Raoul’s voice was calm, but icy. “The haberdashers are cluttering up the foyer. Is Tibór finished?”

“The--who?”

“The tailors, for goodness sake, Katze! I haven’t time for this.”

‘Then speak human!’ Katze shot back in his thoughts. He refrained from letting the other biting remarks fly about how this had all happened to him without his permission or even consultation. What was the point? He couldn’t resist the comment, “Well, if they’re in the way, I will ask Tibór to tell them to go. I didn’t even know they were here.”

“You don’t understand how much depends upon your ability to play this new role, Katze. Even if I were at the apartment to order them to clear out, I wouldn’t.”

“Right, I don’t understand and I feel like I’m about to step off a cliff in the dark. So illuminate me. Please.”

“There’s no time.”

“Wait a minute! If you aren’t here, how do you know who’s getting in the way?” To Tibór, he simply said, “Raoul wants to know if you’re done with me.”

The honey-blond Furniture reached over, tweaked a few strands and stood back, chewing his lower lip. A very charming smile unfurled over his lips and he quietly replied, “I think so.”

“My guests are calling me to complain.” For someone who was conditioned to never lose his cool, Raoul’s voice sounded particularly stretched. “Tell Tibór I’m leaving Jupiter’s Plaza. I should be back at Eos Tower in five minutes.”

Katze wasn’t really thinking when he said, “That must’ve been a short meeting. When Iason went to see Jupiter, it usually took hours. It did when I was his Furniture, anyway.”

“I haven’t seen Jupiter,” Now Raoul definitely sounded strained. “The tower’s lower levels are flooded with synthetic benzene and other neurotoxins. Nor is it possible, with the present breakdown in the planet’s aetheric filtration, to ventilate. At least, since the Praetorian Guard held us at bay for fifteen minutes along the Plaza, we know the rudimentary AI still functions. A task force should be able to deal with this. Why must I figure everything out for everyone?”

Raoul wasn’t directing these comments to Katze in particular. He seemed to be thinking out loud, sending the words over the pet-ring’s transmitter, without realizing that they were filling his new Pet with confusion, shock and disbelief.

“Sorry, it’s--what?” For a moment, Katze forgot that Raoul never repeated himself.

The Blondie rallied back to the moment, “The point is, your appearance as an Elite is necessary, as much for your safety as for convenience. Although I’m unaccustomed to explaining myself, I will be happy to do so when matters are less critical. If Tibór is finished with your hair and makeup, tell him to get the tradesmen out of my foyer, or at least direct Xavier Rex to a private room, so he will stop his harangue. When they are finished dressing you, make your way to my study.”

“Benzene---neuro-? What’s going on?”

“Later.” The Blondie’s voice abruptly cut short.

Katze was left in his confusion with one clear realization, “He can zap me from long distance!”

Tibór swiveled Katze’s chair so that, once more, he faced the bank of mirrors. The effect left the black marketer stunned. Instead of leaving the extensions loose to hang down his back like a veil, Tibór had gathered them into a single loose plait, securing the end and pulling most of his fringe off his face with yards and yards of thin turquoise ribbon. It set off the scarlet highlights like flame to petrol. Tibór had used a light touch with the cosmetics, cloaking the shadows under his eyes and rousing vital lights from his sallow skin. His exotic features, the high cheekbones and single-lidded golden eyes like those of a Siberian tiger, put him in an entirely different category from the typical Elite. In his robe, Katze looked like a youthful, but stern warrior surveying the funerary pyres of the fallen at a battleground. He looked aloof, mysterious, handsome and endowed with authority, at complete odds with who he felt he truly was.

Then his stomach sank even further with a new realization. With long hair, his features now appeared delicate, his skin porcelain, his eyes soft. The type of men he worked with would wipe the floor with him. The only thing which still looked decisive was his jaw and the girth of his neck and shoulders, but even those were softened with the flow of his hair and the cut of his kimono. No way was he going to blend in! He stuck out from the Ruby Elite the same way that Iason had stood apart from the Blondies. He tried to counter the delicacy by projecting ferocity into his expression, but only ended up looking sulky and petulant. Raoul and his wild-arsed ideas!

Tibór quickly gathered the lacquer boxes filled with cosmetics and brushes and tucked them away before ushering in the pesky tailors with their trunks and racks. After a brief consultation, they chose to elaborate on the ancient oriental theme, using embroidered and brocaded silks and block prints, simple lines based on traditional yukatas like the one he wore, jewellery fashioned after inro and netsukes in jade, carnelian, ambers and highly polished teaks, all synthesized since the real substances were nowhere to be found on Amoi. They even suggested a grassy fragrance laced with ylang-ylang and sandalwood. Katze held his tongue as they draped, pinned and tucked, chalked alterations of almost imperceptible dimensions, and discussed colours at length.

While they fussed, he felt a bewildering change of attitude. He had always scorned the way that the Elite had dressed; they looked so contrived and bombastic, so overblown. And while his opinion in that regard had not changed, he felt there were exceptions. There was something familiar about the style he was being dressed in by this particular group.

“You’re the same designers who clothe Sir Hilarion Fyss, aren’t you?” Did the Elite use honorifics when referring to other Elite? Or was that only an affectation of Pets, Furniture and Citizens? Katze had never noticed before and, again, felt the extreme precariousness of the ruse in which he had become entangled.

“We would never be so indiscreet to give out our client list, sir.” The fine, upstanding citizen of Midas who was presently sticking pins under his armpits looked up with a sly smile.

Katze noticed he did not deny it, either. At least he had admired the way Hilarion had dressed, even while he suspected that it was the force of the other man’s personality which carried off that dramatic style successfully. That he would be wearing similar designs was one consolation.

When Katze finally made his entrance into the study as Raoul had ordered, he wasn’t a bit surprised when every eye turned toward him and the room fell silent. It was exactly what he expected.

Only Raoul and the small cluster of Blondies surrounding him, who were fully absorbed in the drama of Merc’s holostream recording, seemed not to notice. Then, as the room’s stillness alerted the First Blondie and he glanced toward Katze, the newest Elite saw his eyes widen in surprise firstly, then smoke with some other indecipherable, terrifying emotion. It was the exact expression Katze had seen him wear just before the episode on the pianoforte that morning.

As for the other Blondies, they retained their expressions of serene detachment, but their bodies told a whole other story, poised on the edges of their seats, for what? An attack?

Katze swallowed nervously and tried to will away the line of perspiration beading along his scalp.

“Ah, Katze, there you are! Gentlemen, allow me to introduce the operative responsible for drawing this informative recording to my attention, Sir Katze Gripe.”

An operative! That was a brilliant stroke. No one would question now why he was such an utter stranger in Elite society, or why no record of his existence as a Ruby could be found anywhere. It would also cover rumours about his participation in the black market.

It didn’t seem to put any of the Blondies at ease, however. If anything, Katze thought they seemed more tense. That was, until he finally raised his gaze to meet their eyes, and discovered that quite a few of them were smiling. Not that an Elite’s smile is ever a comforting thing, ranging anywhere between mockery to something like the way a wolf grins before its teeth clamp onto a nice, fat jugular vein. In this case, the smiles looked very much like the small, smug ones he had noticed during the more boisterous Pet shows. So, it was approval then, of a sort. Somehow that thought was the most alarming of them all. Reflexively, Katze drew up his shoulders and clasped an arm behind his back, covering his buttocks with the back of his clenched fist.

Raoul strode over, draped a proprietary arm across his shoulders, and led him to the area of the room where he had been enthroned within a leather club chair. The massive table overflowed with electronic books, maps, graphs and holostream constructions, as well as scientific devices and instruments that Katze had never encountered. The room appeared to be transformed into something resembling a military campaign headquarters.

Before he managed to sit, a particularly tall and lean Blondie, with features that most reminded Katze of a wolf’s, started firing questions at him. “Katze, what led you to conclude that the Federation is trying to cover-up the destruction of Thallë?”

Katze felt bewildered, disoriented.

“Florien Von, our political attaché with the Federation,” Raoul murmured in his ear as an explanation, urging him with a gesture to respond.

“I have drawn no such conclusion,” Katze replied after a moment of thought. “They are suspects. In terms of the destruction, itself, I have more cause for concern with the Priestess Cult of Tenebrios and even that is based on mere coincidence.”

“Yes, but what first led you to suspect the Federation’s involvement at all?”

Katze cast a questioning look at Raoul who nodded as though giving him permission to proceed.

“The hunch of my agent, who watched, unable to help, as his contact was murdered and his holostream relay station bombed. This only indicates the existence of a cover-up, not who is responsible for it. At a cursory glance, the only force in our sector of Glan with sufficient capacity to manage within such a short time-frame is the Federation, but that conjecture is based on statistical odds, not proof. We have no other evidence at this time.”

“That’s it?” Florien scowled.

“There is no agenda to vilify the Federation. As I said, they are suspects because of their history and ability to act. Any information either supporting or disproving this theory is welcome. Given that there has already been a murder, however, informants will not be too eager to step forward.” Katze looked at his hands, which had not been made up with cosmetics, and tucked the nicotine stain on his fingers out of sight. “I am more concerned about the reasons for the cover-up, than its existence. If the Federation is responsible, do they intend to harm us through this omission?”

Raoul dismissed this reasoning with a wave of his hand. “It is irrelevant what intentions are. Those responsible will be dealt with.” 

Katze felt the need to defend his statement further, but Raoul’s statement confused him. A frenetic bustle of activity in the room had resumed once Raoul had drawn him over to his corner and, only now, had it occurred to Katze how unusual that was. Something was definitely up. “What’s going on?”

“Katze has not been privy to the day’s events,” Raoul explained to the nearest Blondies with whom he had been directly engaged in a meeting. He looked very tired when he told him, “Jupiter has failed.”

“Failed?!” The volume of Katze's response leapt with disbelief, enough to fill the room with silence as he absorbed this information. After a moment’s pause, the various Blondies continued with their activities.

“MSo, as you must now see,” Raoul shrugged, “intentions are irrelevant since harm was perpetrated.”

Katze had thousands of questions. The implications of what he had just learned made his head reel, but it was too much to absorb. So he wrestled his focus to the subject at hand, “The relevance lies in what the Federation would’ve hoped to achieve, if they have formed an alliance with people who would willfully harm us. That could have bearing on---well, on defense tactics.”

Raoul inclined his head in acknowledgement, but added, “Only moderately so, for in either case, they would be a menace and must be dealt with as such.”

“The Federation has a long history of adversarial relations with the Tanaguran Syndicate,” Katze heard the rumble of a deep bass voice. He turned and saw a Blondie whose features included many curling strands of yellow hair which obscured much of his face. “Their public support is a recent phenomenon, bestowed grudgingly and, for the most part, due to the late Lord Mink’s skills as a diplomat.”

“Za-Zen Lau,” Raoul leaned over and muttered, “Steward of the Underworld.”

“Traditionally, a conspiracy of this magnitude would constitute an Act of War,” Florien replied. “As members of the Federation, our fortunes depend upon good terms with its constituency.” 

“As you know well, Amoi has never resorted to overt warfare,” Raoul interjected. “We’ve always used more covert and effective means of coercion. For all their posturing, the Federation is still anxious to trade with us. They may conspire for a change of leadership. Our priority at this time is to stabilize Tanagura, not to engage in saber-rattling.”

An almost imperceptible trace of relief flickered over Florien’s features, gone before Katze could focus his eyes on it.

Raoul made a motion to Katze to help himself to a beverage from the sideboard, while he continued to speak to Florien, “And unless we succeed in our efforts to find or create a breach in the lockdown at Jupiter’s Tower, the obstacles will be difficult enough to surmount without borrowing trouble.”

Lau tapped a sensor on his holostream recorder. “No report from Uriel Lan or his Platinas on the status of that operation yet.”

“Even while we refrain from engaging the Federation in direct hostilities at this time, Florien,” Raoul acknowledged Lau’s information with a brief nod, “our investigation continues, and that is the matter I wished to address with you. I’ve received an invitation to dinner from Mr. Hazall.”

“Ah, an old ‘friend’!” Florien suddenly seemed inordinately interested in the contents of his wineglass.

“Precisely why you must attend. I see a strategic advantage in having you conduct the cross-examination, while I remain aloof. I also see it as an opportunity for you to reinforce your authority with Hazall and his lackeys, who seem determined to circumvent the proper chain of command.”

The attaché nodded his thanks.

“My concern is that you are too attached to peace, and while this has been commendable in the past---your work was always exemplary in that respect---our present situation requires more assertiveness. My fear is that your past successes will tempt you to be overly cautious with our Mr. Hazall.” Raoul leaned forward, plucked a white bishop off the chessboard always at hand on the table next to his chair.

“So know this now, Florien: Hazall was already condemned by Lord Mink; his dispensation as an envoy is entirely at our leisure and only for the duration of his usefulness to us.” With a quick squeeze of his fingers, he reduced the figurine to powder. “Can I count on you to gauge the precision and force of your examination accordingly?”

“You can count on me to discreetly uncover the intentions of Hazall’s handlers.”

“Excellent.”

Suddenly, while Raoul and Florien discussed the upcoming meeting, Katze heard Za-Zen Lau’s low voice, an almost sub-bass vibration pulsating beneath the conversations and buzz of activity throughout the room.

“At one time Lord Mink had a young Furniture in his household who went by the name of Katze.”

Katze’s heart pounded. He was not going to bluster his way through this mess with a lie.

“Brilliant fellow, this particular Furniture, managed to crack the most advanced security network the Syndicate had designed and installed on the Guardian to that date. He learned all sorts of things about Jupiter’s plans for Amoi, probably more than he ever wanted to know. 

“I remember. I monitored the boy’s progress through our various wards and trenchmarks,” Lau’s eyes swept Katze’s cheek. “After he was caught, this Katze was left irreparably scarred.”

Katze blinked. The scar had defined him for so long, he had forgotten that it was gone.

Lau calmly took another sip of wine. “I remember Iason commenting at the time that the scar was too extensive to be healed by regenerabots or hidden by makeup. He had great plans for this Katze.”

“Oh? Did Lord Mink let you in on these plans?” The bitterness in Katze’s voice attracted a sharp glance from Raoul.

Lau’s gloved hand flicked out like lightning, and lifted a shank of the hairpiece off the tip of Katze’s ear where the burnished pet-ring was crimped, only enough to reveal it more clearly to the Steward of the Underworld, not to expose Katze to the other Blondies in the room.

“Iason’s brilliance lay in his heterodoxy. He was utterly unpredictable and constantly astounded both his enemies and the Syndicate with unexpected strikes and maneuvers. His strategies held signature flair, unfathomable to all but a few minds.” As Katze looked into the depths of Lau’s eyes, he got the distinct impression that this Blondie was one of those few. “I see Lord Am shares similar traits. And I thought disguising a Mongrel as a Pet was audacious!”

Katze wisely held his tongue.

As Lau removed his hand, he slid his index finger across Katze’s cheek with a slow sensual gesture, mimicking the traces of the dead Blondie’s skewer. “Iason always had an eye for talent. There were rumours he took his own Pet. Can you imagine?”

Yes, he could. All too clearly. Katze’s mouth felt dry. He wondered if this Blondie’s words were intended to sound as threatening as they did. Is it to be blackmail then? Must I let him take me as the price for his silence? He swallowed hard.

Suddenly there was that warm, protective hand on his shoulder. “I see you’ve discovered our little secret, Lau.”

“I had my suspicions,” Lau smiled sardonically at Raoul.

Raoul turned to Katze, “I want to thank you for sharing your information with us. I think you have done enough here for now. You still haven’t had time to settle in. I was going to suggest that you use Paviter to help you reinstall your system in your new suite, but I don’t think you will want to connect your computer with the planetary datastream while Jupiter is in fatal error. At least you can get it set up and ready to run. It is quite possible, when all the dust has settled, that your computer will be the only undamaged one left on the planet.”

Katze nodded.

“Excellent. Afterwards, I need you to continue your investigation. Since your agent is incommunicado, and you have no idea where to start, I will give you a lead. Contact Hilarion Fyss’ Furniture--”

“Kosai?”

“I believe that is his name, yes. Inform him of the present situation with his master. Then explain that you require the use of Fyss’ archives and research library. Find me every bit of information he has stored away in those systems. Every particle. Do you understand?” 

Katze gave a formal bow to both of the Blondies.

As he left, he heard Lau ask Raoul, “What are you up to, my friend? While it is true that Iason’s Mongrels were always smarter than average, there were valid reasons Jupiter barred them from Eos.”

By the time Raoul replied, Katze had moved too far away to overhear.

Although Paviter had disassembled and packed Katze’s security and computer array as carefully as anyone could, it still took hours to straighten out the mess. Katze’s first inclination had been to complain about the other man’s presence, he was so used to working alone, but the Car proved himself extremely helpful, strong enough to heft the bulky equipment from one of the room, flexible enough to crawl into the requisite tight spaces to hook up wires and cables. The job was finished much faster than if he had attempted it on his own. 

A unique and marvelous feature of his holostream array was that it wasn’t entirely dependent on the planetary datastream in order to collect or transmit data. This independence required him to receive encrypted holostreams bounced from off-world relay stations situated on various satellites and sectors of the asteroid belt. This, in turn, meant that one stream or another only worked for a limited time during the day or night, it was subject to interference from solar flares, and it was very clunky to operate. But it also meant that of Katze’s more furtive and illegal activities escaped Jupiter’s constant scrutiny. He didn’t feel the urgent need to share this particular crumb of detail with Raoul just yet.

“What does that blinking light signify?” Paviter interrupted his reverie.

“Hunh? Which light?” A red alarm had been tripped. “Did you remember to remove the fire escape door?”

“We disarmed it, if that’s what you mean.”

“Did you bring it with you?”

“No,” Paviter replied slowly. “That wasn’t in your instructions. We left it attached to its hinges.”

Katze swore. The whole change-over had been so sudden. Of course he couldn’t remember everything. Why did he feel like such an incompetent idiot for forgetting this one thing? The fire-escape door had had sensor panels built right into it, not just into the frame and strike-plate. No one could so much as brush up against it without setting off the alarm. “Okay, this is probably nothing. It was probably tripped when you left the suite.”

“But you aren’t a hundred per cent certain,” Paviter replied.

“Definitely not,” Katze started to pace. How did this Pet-ring transmitter work? Could he just call on Raoul at any time? He gave it a try. “Raoul, did you catch any of that?” 

He had. All of it.

With Raoul’s caution against walking into a trap still ringing in his ear, Katze pulled up with Paviter into the alleyway behind his old apartment. Together they stared through the open door into darkness.

“We definitely closed and locked the door after the cleaning crew left,” Paviter said, flicking the safety off his laser.

“Thanks for that.” Katze replied, longing to smack his bodyguard in the back of his head except for that the guy---the very big guy---was holding a gun.

“Don’t mention it. Hey, and don’t you think a twenty-stone sack of coffee beans veers awfully close to overkill?”

Katze’s jaw almost dropped. What kind of a question was that? “I like to buy in bulk.”

“Damned thing weighed more than any single piece of equipment in your array---more than the bulkhead! Your coffee addiction nearly gave my gorillas hernias.”

“Oh, um, sorry.” The truth was that the coffee was left over from the packing crates used to smuggle in the illegal ingredients for some of the more stronger aphrodisiacs used in Apatia. Katze figured it was the one real perk of his former career. The only one that really interested him.

“And what’s with all the coffin-pegs in your freezer?”

What? You can’t tell me you got a hernia from them! I only had about thirty packs in there.” Katze lit up a fresh smoke off the butt of one he had just finished. He hated this. This was exactly why he never wanted to leave the bat-cave. Sooner or later, it always led to someone chewing his ear off about all the coffee and cigarettes.

“Only thirty packs! They were the only thing in there. Don’t you eat? Doesn’t it bother you to smoke stale Shiila?”

“Not really. It will all be ash and fairy-gas long before the tobacco has a chance to get stale. I take it you didn’t find my stash of powdered Euphoria.”

“What?”

“Just kidding.”

“You’re too much, know that? I bet you were sweating bullets when Raoul sent me to fetch you.”

“Yeah, well he can hear every word you’re saying. You know that, right?” Katze tapped his pet-ring.

Paviter shrugged. “Aw, he thinks you’re a whiner.”

A whiner! Katze’s mind flew to Manon Sohl, son of Coogar, the late Keeper of Guardian. Even Riki was a complainer compared to Katze; granted, his butt had probably been sore enough to count for a good reason. This buffoon didn’t know what he was talking about. Katze knew he was as cool as they came. He pulled out his laser.

“Not so fast,” the Car slammed the locks down. “Me first.”

“Then move!”

Katze waited until he was out, and then, thanking whatever lucky star made Paviter forget to close the screen between his seat and the passenger section, leapt into the front and out the door that way. He was on his way up the stairs, when Paviter hissed and waved at the stairs. Something dark and viscous was splattered across them.

Gore.

“By all means, after you,” Katze muttered.

Paviter stalked down the stairs like a giant panther, soundlessly, hugging the side nearest the wall. Holding out an object that Katze suddenly realized was the vehicle’s newly detached rearview mirror, he quickly scanned the room with it. 

A volley of laser bolts flashed from the open casement setting the neighbour’s parched cypresses on fire. It was accompanied by a string of the most creative and explicit curses Katze had ever heard, in a hoarse growl he immediately recognized.

“Merc, hold your fire! It’s me.”

“Katze, you sonofabitch, I thought you were long gone.”

“No, I’m right here.”

“You didn’t clear out?”

Katze rushed past Paviter, pushing the great hulk aside none too gently. He found Merc reclining painfully in a pool of blood and vomit, clutching at a terrific gash in his stomach. Three other men were down, obvious corpses. “I forgot to disconnect one of the alarms, thankfully.”

“Yeah? Well, I think I fucked up your damage deposit, man. The Federales came after me, just like I said. How the hell they found me, I’ll never know, but I took the bastards down. Every last one of them. Caught a blast across my abdomen toward the end though. Figure I broke a couple of ribs, too, falling down your stairs. So thirsty. You wouldn’t have a bottle of water on you, by any chance?”

Katze felt a chill crawl up his spine at those ominous words. He knelt beside the miner and started to unwind his fancy new cravat in order to fasten it around Merc’s guts, just to hold them in until he and Paviter could transport him to the Kalga. Paviter stopped him and held out legitimate tensor bandages from the first aid kit in the car.

Merc’s eyes focused on Katze for the first time, noticing his new appearance, “What the hell happened to you?”

“Long story. I’ll tell you while we get you to a hospital. Why did you come back, Merc? You were safely away. You didn’t have to return.”

“Yeah, I did. I really did.” His voice started to rasp a little more. “I found something for you. You were right, kid. That hunch about the Priestesses of Tenebrios? Spot on. How d’you get so smart? Here’s a name for you: Moebius Operation Ruction System, or MORS as our little buddies in the Federation call it.”

"MORS."

“Yeah, a specially designed virus which affects whole planetary computer systems, traps their coordinating functions in circular logic, and while they are reeling in that endless loop, attacks and distorts the rest of the artificial intelligence.”

“That’s pretty standard for computer viruses.”

“Not this one. No, this one’s special, designed specifically for Jupiter types---reflects the way the priestesses work. Those bitches have developed some rather unique powers.” Merc’s face contracted with pain as Paviter gently lifted him onto the old fire escape door, which he had removed and improvised into a stretcher. He wheezed as spasms rolled through his torso.

“Whoa, careful there. Hang on for us. Don’t want to lose you now.” Katze put a sturdy arm around the man’s shoulder and held his hand in a firm, comforting grip until his shudders passed. 

“Damn it, just hold off until I tell Katze what he’s got to know, will ya?” Merc snapped at Paviter when he had recovered enough to speak. “Yeah…as I was saying…Priestesses have the power to make your worst nightmares real….make you think that your worst nightmares are coming real…or something like that. On a planetary level.”

“What do you mean? They can materialize nightmares?”

“Not sure how it works. Something like that. They worm their way into your subconscious mind somehow and root out your fears. As far as whether they make them come true, what’s the difference between if something is real or not, if you experience it as real. Know what I’m saying?”

“So what you’re saying is that they open up stuff in your brain that makes you experience it like it’s real, even if it isn’t?”

“Naw, sometimes they make it come real…on Thallë, that infestation,” Merc’s face was growing grayer by the minute. He could barely summon enough breath to spit out the words, “It was real enough.”

“Save your energy, Merc,” Katze told him. “You’ve done good. Now, rest. I don’t want you passing away.”

“No, there’s more.” 

“So, they use the piano to infest the planet. That’s a pretty clever trick for disguising a carrier.”

“NO! No, not that---Don’t destroy it! Priestesses sure as hell never expected us to get our hands on one…do everything in their power to get it back…all about domination and--”

Merc’s voice fell off.

“And what?” Katze asked, in a voice sharpened with anxiety for his friend. It was clear that Merc wasn’t going to be able to answer. “Alright, Car, now’s the time to move him out. Kalga 19.”

“That’s an Elite facility,” Paviter objected. “They will never treat him.”

Katze checked to see if the pet-ring still worked. “Raoul?”

He was never so delighted to hear the Blondie’s voice. “You have my authority, Katze.”

Sometimes pet-rings were okay.


	7. String Theory

It struck Katze as the height of irony that the streets of a district named Flare now burned. He peered out the car window as the limousine hovered from Hilarion’s library back to Eos. Through the choking haze of smoke and amber firelight he could see shopkeepers struggle to rig barricades with which roving gangs smashed windows to steal anything they could grab. People lay dead or dying on the sidewalks, impaled as the towering store-fronts which once sparkled and gleamed with so much affluence and temptation cascaded upon them in a rain of deadly icicles.

Down one alleyway, he caught a glimpse of a gang which had succeeded in boxing in a hover-car. The driver and one of his passengers were prostrate on the asphalt as men took turns to kick them or hit them with makeshift clubs. The other passenger, a Pet dressed in party attire--

“Back up!” Katze ordered Paviter. “Line me up with that laneway.”

“My orders were to—”

“Do as I say or I’ll make you regret it.” The laser-pistol made a satisfying rocket-launcher sound as Katze fired it up.

“What the fuck are you doing?” He felt a little smug as Car’s voice jumped from bass-baritone to almost a squeak in panic, but the man backed up the hover-car as he had demanded. He lowered the window and opened the shielding a crack, just enough to nudge the barrel of the gun through it.

The man who held down the Pet over the steel rubbish bin was too distracted to realize what a clear shot his forehead presented. Katze aimed for the kneecap instead, enough to kill anyone’s appetite for rapine and, from the casual tracking he had kept on Guy following Dana Bahn, it could almost be a crueler fate than death in Tanagura. After shooting off the man’s limb, Katze immediately trained the scope on his next target, a bald muscular guy who was going berserk on the fallen men.

“Why, Kat-boy, I didn’t know you cared,” Paviter drawled, slamming the vehicle into idle and pulling out his own gun. 

“I don’t,” Katze squeezed the trigger.

Too late the attackers realized they were being ambushed and scrambled for cover. He aimed at a wiry little man with a sly face who looked like just the type to incite this sort of attack and who now tried to climb out of range behind a drainpipe. Katze blew out his shoulder and said, “Keep that in mind if you plan to call me any more retarded nicknames.”

Paviter’s chuckle had a bratty quality that Katze had never noticed before. It hit him like one of Raoul’s long-distance electrocutions. The beefy bodyguard was little more than an overgrown kid, still uncomfortable about his presence in the company of adults. The attitude, patter, and big tough-guy pose was all a bluff. So few Mongrels outpaced Katze’s height and heft that he tacked on experience, maturity and self-confidence by default; this little revelation caught him off-guard. 

Then he realized there were certain kinds of education he wasn’t willing to instigate.

“Shoot to maim,” he instructed the other man, “not kill.”

“What?” Paviter looked confused and Katze knew this broke one of the cardinal rules of bodyguard training but there wasn’t enough time to explain.

“You heard me.”

The Pet had lost what remained of his wits and started tearing around like the terrified fool he undoubtedly was, blocking their shots. Fortunately, the other Car---the one who had been attacked---reached up and tackled him before his head got blown off. The other man kept his head down; Katze presumed he was the Pet’s owner, and caught a whiff of resentment about that lurking around the dark alleys of his own brain. Between the two of them, he and Paviter disabled the remaining four assailants in a matter of seconds and drove off without waiting around to see what became of the men they had rescued.

“Mind telling me what that was really about?” Paviter finally broke the silence.

“This place is about to erupt in a firestorm,” Katze remarked, carefully watching as building after building candled behind them, “and the stupid bastards are trying to save their merchandise instead of their sorry asses. It’s time to vacate, boys!” He called out to everyone and no one in particular.

“That’s not what I meant but, now that you mention it, why is it burning like this? I thought Midas was specially engineered to prevent this sorta thing.”

“Same reason that everything else in this stinking city is falling apart: Jupiter put in powerful incentives for us to never take it out of the equation. That an enemy from outside Amoi might try wasn’t part of its original game-plan. Our safeguards depend on a link with Jupiter. Now that that’s gone, we’re screwed.”

Katze lit up a cigarette. “Nope. The ring-roads will contain it. It won’t get past Flare. Anything protected with magnetic shields will probably be safe. The Kalgas will be safe. The police stations will be safe. The casino will be safe.”

“Got all the information you were looking for?”

“Fyss’ archives are probably the safest place in all of Midas.”

“I was thinking of his Furniture.”

“Kosai’s at the Kalga looking after Hilarion. So, yeah, he’ll be okay.”

“Good, then answer me this: those apes we just shot at are gonna fry anyway; what was the point of not killing them?”

“Don’t pin that one on me, tiger. I’m not their executioner and if they get their act together, they could still make it out alive. Just as the idiots we rescued might still burn, depending on their brains and priorities. Seeing as they got themselves cornered in a box canyon, I’m not holding out a lot of hope. All we did was level the playing field a little.”

“Ever kill anyone, Katze?”

The nicotine had sent cool streaming along his nerves, enough to ignore the question, until the Car shot him a Meaningful Look in the rearview mirror.

“You're one nosy bastard! Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Don’t try and tell me Tibór never opened my files for you to take a snoop.”

Paviter nodded. “Yeah but, first of all, Raoul made me run a backgrounder the day he brought the pianoforte home.” 

“Right, and—?”

“Lots of questionable spaces. Lots of unaccountable activities. Huge slices of time filled in with meaningless appointments that could mean anything.”

“What did you expect?”

“Just like right now, that you’re really good at deflecting direct questions.”

“Then stop asking.”

Paviter looked so abashed that Katze vividly remembered he was still a bit of a kid inside.

He stubbed out the butt of his cigarette. “I was the Tanaguran Syndicate’s sock-puppet on the black market for the past few years. I was always ready to kill if I had to and I ordered plenty of hits. So, yeah, you could say I’ve got blood on my hands.”

“Why didn’t you want me to kill those men? You don’t think they deserved it?”

“Oh, they deserved it alright. Lots of people deserve it, including me. Take the idiot who owned that Pet and Car, for instance, Mr. Good Citizen of Midas: have you any idea what it took for me not to pull off a shot at him?”

“Him! Why?”

“For being the idiot responsible for putting his Car and Pet in that mess; for being a Good Citizen of Midas which is tantamount to being a clueless parasite; for all kinds of general injustices and social imbalances which are and aren’t his fault. I could’ve even pretended it was an accident. ‘Whoopsie! See how his head just happened to get in the way?’ It was so bloody tempting.”

The look of shock on Paviter’s face at that moment was reward enough for this confession.

“Point is, once you start, where do you stop?”

Which was when Paviter delivered the coup de grâce, “So, is that what you think of Raoul?”

Was it? It should’ve been, Katze figured, if he truly cared about that justice and social balance crap.

Except, in that moment, all he could think about was how good it felt when Raoul was grinding against him, stretching him across the surface of that strange piano. All he could remember was the curtain of light that was his golden hair falling all around them, how there was almost too much strength, speed and mastery in that body for belief, the way Raoul’s beautiful face burned with intensity, passion and lust, and the surprisingly gentle way they parted. It made his pulse race and the blood rush to his groin. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back and bit his lip to stifle that groan of frustration. As fiercely as he wanted to hate Raoul, as poisonously as he wanted to resent him for being so easily cowed and dominated, the longing for a repeat performance was even stronger. To Katze’s shame, his body betrayed him, undermining all his determination and opposition. Oh yeah, he had it hard over the Blondie. Hard just thinking about him.

Katze lit up another cigarette. “Hey, since when have I ever pretended to be anything but a hypocrite?”

That shut the Car up. About time, too, Katze's head was starting to ache. Even though he had started the day with a decent sleep, it had been another long one. Did he even get what they were looking for?

Unlike most Amoian libraries, the antiquarian’s had contained actual books, hundreds of them, most of which Katze assumed had not been computerized. Hilarion’s collection encompassed whole cabinets and shelves filled with loose-paper documents in preservation containment fields. He scarcely knew where to start, but that wasn’t why he found it so hard to breathe.

His head was reeling, not only from the wild destruction into which Amoi seemed to be crumbling and the mysterious changes which had tumbled his body and life circumstances arse-over-teakettle for the past couple of days, but from Merc’s situation. Raoul had authorized the Shock-Trauma surgeons at Kalga 84 to extract and store the contents of Merc’s mind. Merc’s mind was being wiped. After that, there would be no reason to sustain or save the life in the older man’s body. Probably he would be taken out like so much garbage. So Katze was beside himself.

As he disabled the containment on a set of indexes, a clammy sweat clawed its way out of his skin.

Nor was it this knowledge alone that left him poleaxed, but the way he had learned of it. The Onyx orderly who had met Paviter and him at Kalga 19’s shock-trauma admissions had taken him on a quick tour of the medical facility.

“The interruption of Jupiter’s datastream has led to more accidents, more accidents of a far more serious nature,” the orderly had waved a hand toward processing rooms filled with Elite, many of whom looked irate and indignant at the wait, and none of whom were in as dire a condition as the smuggler’s. “Usually we are nowhere near so---stretched to capacity. We’ve had to resort to subterfuge to hide your Mongrel’s identity. Had patients learned their care was delayed for his benefit, we would’ve had a lynch-mob on our hands. If Lord Am, himself, hadn’t called ahead with specific instructions, he would’ve been reprocessed during triage in favour of patients with higher status.”

The thunderclouds gathering on Katze’s face cut the Elite’s spiel short and he changed the direction of his words. “Fortunately, the First Blondie’s instructions were very clear. The interruption with the datastream does affect our care. Biotechs were even forced to resort to antiquated Tesslar ion field separators in the effort to extract and preserve the Mongrel’s memories, at least until Lord Am has had a proper chance to inspect them.”

Which was when Katze’s lungs started to labour.

“The patient has been mind-wiped?” His disbelief had been so overwhelming, he had to check and make sure that, in fact, this was what this man was telling him.

“Of course,” the Black replied, as though the question was ridiculous.

And here he had thought Raoul was being so wonderful to back him up and let Merc get treated at Kalga 19! Everything Katze saw at the facility from that point onward was muffled, sight filtered through some sort of dark blur, sounds covered with a crackling haze of static, as he was led around the building in a suffocating blanket of ... what was it? Betrayal? Rage? Helplessness and shame? He couldn’t even distinguish the feelings anymore; they were all stirred together in some sort of toxic mix which choked him and diminished his senses.

Back at the library, Katze had cracked open an index which looked like it had never been used. He started to search through ‘P’ for ‘Pianoforte’, but overshot his mark and landed on ‘Priestess’ instead. There were a few entries for the Priestesses of Tenebrios, including a note about how the name for the planet originated from classical astronomy for the darkness which seemed to swallow all light. It was this same sort of darkness which seemed to swirl around Katze’s vision as he hauled the corresponding journal off its shelf. He slid to the floor, where he sat with his back braced against the shelf. 

The pet-ring clamped to his ear crackled to life.

“Katze, are you under attack? Your pulse just shot off the charts!” Right, the pet-ring monitored his vital signs.

Why was Raoul always after him over something he couldn’t control? It was like the time when he woke up in the car after his own trip to the Kalga, and the Blondie had got on his case for having a nightmare. As though there was choice involved. Katze figured that as long as he deflected the Blondie from the real reason for this bout of heartsickness, he wouldn’t get his brains zapped out.

Katze’s eyes ran over random columns of print and fell on something which seemed worth mentioning.

“Hey, Raoul, did you know that lilies once had their own scent?”

“What—?”

“Lilies, it says here they once used to smell nice. And they weren’t the only flowers that did either. There was this funny language game that people used to play called poetry, and the natural fragrance of lilies came up in it quite often--”

“I take it there’s been no assault and you’re proceeding through Hilarion’s library at present?”

“—Along with roses, gardenias…all kinds of flowers and this book says they had this smell so that they could attract insects for pollination. So it was the way they evolved to—in order to mate, I guess. Say, Raoul, when did flowers stop having a smell?”

Raoul had fallen silent. 

“By any chance was that when we started growing them out of petri dishes?” Katze couldn’t prevent the bitterness from creeping into his own voice. “When we started slicing them apart, dissecting them into their itty-bitty parts and components?”

When Raoul responded, his voice was detached and dry. “There is a point to this, I presume. Why are you asking?” 

“Whoever decided that flowers with no perfume, which don’t need other things—like other insects or flowers—were a better thing anyway?—Especially when there’s all this poetry-shit they used to write rhapsodizing over how beautiful the damned things were.”

“Excuse me? I’m not grasping the point you’re trying to make.”

Katze felt like an idiot. This was the stupidest conversation he had ever started. He tried to remember the main theme, what it was that connected all his different points. Perfumes were fashioned in laboratories now anyway. There was no need for natural scents. Just as no one read poetry anymore, except those with an interest in anachronisms. Anachronisms like piano music and the lives of mongrel smugglers.

“Katze, it sounds like you are under too much stress.”

No shit.

“When I stop being useful, Blondie, are you going to have my mind wiped?”

The connection fell silent.

“Are you, Raoul?”

“Is this your convoluted way of asking, my pet, if I’m planning to have you put down when you start to smell bad?” The comment was flipped off in Raoul’s most droll tone, yet the jokiness sounded forced.

Shut up, Katze! Katze had told himself. Just shut the fuck up! He had seen the crowds gathering in the mercantile district as Paviter drove through; anarchy, looting, riots and bloodshed were on the immediate agenda for Tanagura. Who was he to think the rest of this mattered? He ran his fingers through his scalp and trapped them for a moment in his ridiculous new hairpiece, yanking out some of his natural hair while trying to get them unstuck. “Yeah, I guess you could say it is.”

When Raoul finally spoke, it was with the same impersonal detachment that the Elite used like a weapon, cold and cutting to the bone, “We haven’t got the time to deal with your neuroses right now. Can you trust that I’m doing everything in my power to keep you safe? Can you focus on the problem at hand?”

Great, so now he was about to get smacked for sounding like a whiner. Katze knew the discussion was over as concerned a middle-aged smuggler. He struggled back to his feet, and finally got on the right page: Tenebrios, Priestesses of….

“"Whereas there is little hard data about the planet of Tenebrios, Smythe’s Definitive Explorations cites that it has been ruled for over two hundred years by a matriarchal Psychetech Theocracy of priestesses. It is unknown how they have become adept at manipulating the subconscious mind on a mass level, whether through chemical or mechanical stimulation, but anecdotal evidence indicates collective hive mind technology and coalescent telepathy. Excuse me, but, coalescent telepathy?” 

“The classical understanding of telepathy was all wrong. To date, psychetechs have not uncovered a single instance of thought transmission and reception which uses verbal-style language or speech patterns,” Raoul explained. “Coalescence is one of the variants of telepathy.” 

There were different kinds of telepathy?

Katze was startled to even receive an answer. He had been wondering if it was even necessary or in the overall plan for him to understand this information, or if he just a human relay circuit, routing it to the Blondie. “Telepathy isn’t just straightforward reading of thoughts?”

“Not as you and I are presently conversing, no, although strings of words may appear. Coalescent telepathy tracks and reads the direction of attention and suppression based on things like colour and sound patterns which appear as a byproduct of brain functions.”

The Blondies had made a science out of reading minds. Katze shook his head. Was there anything that escaped their scrutiny?

“So, what you’re saying is one of these Priestesses would follow thoughts by noticing the things that people are looking at, or what they’re listening to? By tracking the direction of their eyes and ... stuff?”

“Not quite. Human beings are more complicated than that and usually they aren’t focused on their immediate environments anyway. Jupiter, for example, emits sound and light frequencies which I read much like a geophysicist reads seismic graphs, another form of language. Or, as another example, sometimes my physiology and experience as a biotechnician allows me to recognize smells of chemical components released in hormones associated with hunger, excitement, anger, or arousal. So I know when I’m dealing with elevated or depressed physical or emotional states. Not quite the same as telepathy, but close.”

There was a flutter of static across their sound transmission, as though Raoul were brushing off his coat with the hand on which his pet-ring controller was fixed.

“Coalescent telepathy takes this a few steps further. If the Priestesses have developed mastery of it, they must have an ability to receive the sound or colour frequencies or patterns that are byproducts of brain functions. These are signals that coalesce around different thoughts, feelings, and physical reactions. We send these signals off reflexively and, as a rule, without awareness. So they read these and organize them into coherent images and sounds. It tells them what we pay attention to, that which we desire, and what we suppress, that which we fear.”

“Right,” Katze replied, meaning ‘Hunh?’

“Verbal speech is very clumsy and inexact. An enemy that can read your worst fears and desires, before you’re even aware of them, is a considerable opponent.”

This Katze could understand.

“Add to that instant communication through hive-mind technology, and the ability to materialize these fears and desires through psychetechnological warfare,” Raoul continued, “or, at least, to make you believe that they are being materialized, then these Priestesses verge on near invincibility.”

“So, all this stuff we’ve been going through—the dreams, my healing, the destruction of Jupiter—it could all be one big delusion, a huge, hysterical mass-hypnotic episode?”

There was no answer.

“Raoul?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. It certainly seems real enough. As your friend so helpfully pointed out, Tanagura—you, me, and everyone else here—perceives it and reacts to it as such, as though it is all very real. If none of it is, what does that matter?”

“Why are they singling us out?”

“We’ve already been through this. It doesn’t matter, suffice that they have.”

Katze sensed that Raoul was mistaken. “I can’t shake off the ... feeling that it matters very much.”

“Fine, as long as it doesn’t interfere with our defense, I am not attached to being right or wrong about this. In the meantime, do you have any other information I can use?”

“There’s a picture here which looks exactly like the computer circuitry or whatever it was we found in your piano, along with pages and pages describing something called ‘Fate-webs’.”

“Fate-webs, you’re sure that’s the name?”

“That’s what the book calls them.”

“How strange.”

“Let’s see. These are filaments which appear to penetrate, capture and imprison the objective consciousness of victims in desire, suspending them in the experience of satiation, uh, satisfaction.”

"Yes, Katze, I know what satiation is. So that’s what those threads are for.”

“Most of the pages appear to be chemical and mathematical formulae.” 

“Can you take a holostream recording and send it to me?”

Katze took out the hover-camera, trained it on the pages, and hit record, “As we speak.”

“Thank you. Our situation isn’t completely hopeless, even if Tenebrian psychetechnology has advanced that much.” Raoul continued his lesson. “Coalescent Telepathy has side-effects. It can play havoc with spatial-temporal perception. It mashes the sense of past, present and future into one big indiscernible mess. We could use that to our advantage. Then there’s the fact that Tanagurans have received a lot of training at the repression of personal desire-”

Katze bit off his retort. He secretly thought that this repression made the force of desire much stronger. Since, courtesy of Jupiter’s special Blondie indoctrination, Raoul seemed to believe otherwise, he didn’t think it worth an argument. If Tanagurans were so bloody good at repressing their desires, then why had Iason grown so obsessed with Riki? Why had Raoul pestered him on top of his piano?

There was a moment of silence as the Blondie waited for the holostream to upload onto his terminal. Katze almost dropped the journal whose pages he was turning for the holostream recording track, when Raoul suddenly asked, “Did you like the room I asked the hospital staff to prepare for your friend?”

“Room!” Was Raoul messing with his head now? “Isn’t he dead by now? Why bother with a room?”

There was a beat or two before Raoul answered, “Where did you think he was going to recover? On the streets?”

Katze rubbed his now-aching temples. “Well, someone’s confused because the orderly told me you were having Merc’s mind wiped. So, I’m either hearing things or someone at the hospital thinks you ordered that.”

“Yes, of course. It’s standard practice at Kalga 19 for surgeons to remove the memory and higher mind functions. Wasn’t this why you specifically requested he be treated there?”

“Once his mind’s shot, what’s the point to keeping his body? It’s not like he has the youth, beauty or stamina to be turned into a sex-slave.”

“Let me get this straight, you thought we were just going to plunder his brain and toss his carcass into cellular-recycling?”

“Wait! You weren’t?” It was the first time Katze considered this. “Why remove his mind at all?”

“To protect it during the more invasive surgical procedures, naturally. Once we manage to save his body and lower brain functions, the biotechnicians restore these other aspects of his consciousness. You didn’t know this?”

“Mind-wipes have been known to happen for some pretty superficial reasons, Raoul.”

“When?”

“Iason’s old minion, Kirie?”

“Who? Ah, yes. Superficial, now really! Manon Sol and Kirie took it upon themselves to wander into the Underworld without clearance, without a guard. Sol was catatonic when we found him; Kirie, a gibbering wreck; their parietal lobes were disintegrating. They were bloody lucky that’s all that happened. If we hadn’t found them-” Katze refrained from leaping on in, knowing he hadn’t been initiated that far into the Syndicate’s secrets. He had always suspected there was something sinister beneath the first lower Guardian labyrinth.

The redhead’s throat constricted. He remembered the lust in Kirie’s odd-coloured eyes everytime the punk had looked at Iason, how he had oozed with greed and envy, how desperately he had wanted to take Riki’s place. There was more behind those mind-wipes than fixing catatonic shock.

“If we didn’t do this to you when you broke into the Syndicate’s datastream,” Raoul added, “why would we do it to an agent who has proven his value and usefulness?”Shit! Shit! Shit! Perhaps he had seriously misjudged his---what was Raoul anyway? An employer? His master? A closet nice guy? Right, and that’s why he was standing there with a long-distance electrocution pet-ring crimped over his ear. Sure enough, it always came down to the servitude angle, how useful he was to Raoul but, still, this was a far cry from sinister mind-killer.

“I’m assuming this was the reason behind your sudden episode of morbidity.”

Katze’s voice was very small when he replied, “It isn’t as though you haven’t threatened me with a mind wipe before.”

Raoul sighed and changed the subject. “I suppose you were too distraught to pay attention to the facility tour then. Pity, I was hoping you could fill me in on Hilarion’s progress.”

“Yeah, I was a little distracted.” Still was. It was hard to shift gears from seeing someone as an omnipotent threat to almost a benefactor so suddenly. “I don’t recall seeing your friend at all.”

“They will be sharing a recovery module, since the Kalga is somewhat overwhelmed at present. It occurred to me that Hilarion was very kind to you, so he would not object to your friend’s presence as the others would. Perhaps they can assist each other in their recovery.”

In the ruin of his old apartment, Katze had been so sure that the Kalga 19 Elite Medical Facility would be so much more luxurious than Kalga 84 Medical Facility for Pets and Furniture. And, to a certain extent, it was. The main difference was that Elite physiology was inherently superior; they needed less sleep, less nourishment, less medicine, and their rooms were kept at a slightly lower temperature in accordance with their higher metabolisms. Equipment used for life support and recovery reflected this disparity. Even colour schemes were different, since the colours which tranquilized or stimulated the Elite tended to drop-kick ordinary humans whose physical energy was low into depression, or skittered them into anxiety and irrational rages. Had he stopped to think about it, Katze would’ve realized that Kalga 84 Medical Facility for Pets and Furniture was not by design the inferior facility for Merc’s requirements that he had presumed. 

Until the medical response team, however, alerted to their arrival by Raoul’s intervention, whisked Merc away to the surgical theatre, none of this became obvious to him. These observations had all been lost in the shock of learning about Merc’s mind-wipe.

He suddenly recalled a glimpse of deep blue hair fanned out on a snowy white pillow and a particularly fine silk brocade robe hanging from a hook beside a bed.

“And since they’ve been involved in this present dilemma from the beginning, I hoped they might stimulate each other to find more answers,” Raoul’s voice sounded tired. “That does seem like too much to hope for, however.”

“Hey, Raoul,” Katze said suddenly, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. I’m really sorry.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m confused. Because up until two days ago, we had nothing to do with each other. Suddenly, I’m a fixture,” if not in your life, at least in your plans, Katze continued silently. “So what’s this all about?”

“Set it aside for now. I’ve got some other tasks lined up for you, jobs which require your—mmm, unique and special—talents. Right now I need you in that library. Get me everything you can lay your hands on, especially about this new Moebius Operational Ruction System, as quickly as you can. Alright, Katze?”

“Yeah, I’m on it.” Katze took a deep breath and walked over the next bookcase. Once again, he had a Blondie guarding his back. Not just any Blondie, but the most powerful one of them all, the leader of the Tanaguran Syndicate. And such a beautiful man, the most celestial in all Tanagura. He remembered the heady days when he first started manipulating the Black Market under Iason’s direction. It had felt just like this, a little bit thrilling, a little out of control, way out of his depth, and a lot like being alive.

So Katze still felt insecure about his situation. Raoul scowled, turning back to his terminal where the holostream of fate-web formulae scrolled across his screen. That was inconvenient. Subordinates who could not trust tended to be untrustworthy. He, himself, was not inclined to trust easily but, in his case, the concern was entirely warranted by his position. Katze had no real position. Any status he enjoyed depended solely on Raoul’s grace. It was not his place to worry. Under other circumstances, it would be automatic to arrange a test of loyalty. It was interesting how necessity prevailed upon him to act in such new and unorthodox fashions, to follow his instincts rather than his training and methodology. Still, this could cause problems. Raoul pondered the best course of action.

Even the thought of Katze as a subordinate had started to gall him. Subordinate though he was most certainly in view of their society, what did that really matter between men as individuals? There were a few other superficial differences. Ultimately, it boiled down to lack of confidence, easy enough to amend. Although…

Did he really want Katze to feel balanced? Enough to act independently?

Raoul considered Katze’s first appearance disguised as an Elite, the room’s heightened electricity and desire. He was so beautiful, like a mythical creature, a phoenix in flames all golden red. Raoul wasn’t the only Blondie who had wanted him.

Then there was the tail-end of that little interaction he had caught between Za-Zen Lau, and Katze. Raoul doubted the Steward of the Underworld held himself under the same constraints as the rest of the Elite; the horrors of his realm would reinforce that aspect of life which was so ephemeral, more so than in any other position in Tanagura. He wouldn’t care that Katze was a Mongrel. Lau would seize both the day and Katze.

Ah, but given the choice, would Katze let him? At first appearance, Katze had seemed panicky and fearful, but what if Raoul had not been there? Was his desire reciprocated? Did Katze feel any sense of loyalty or gratitude? He had been delightfully responsive during the medical examination of his body, and he seemed to appreciate their one small sexual encounter, but what made Raoul think the attraction was personal?

A wave of heat pulsed across his face, constricting his throat. He pushed himself up from his chair and started to pace. 

Perhaps some sort of test was in order after all.

He summoned Paviter over the comm-link.

“It isn’t necessary for Katze to conduct that particular end of our research. Assemble a different group of discreet individuals to take over his project in Hilarion’s library,” he watched the Car’s taciturn expression shift into one of smugness, yet another person who wasn’t aware how transparent his thoughts and emotions were to Raoul. “His services are required here now.”

The comm-link chimed just as he punched the disconnect button and Serge Renaud’s face appeared onscreen replacing Paviter’s. “As you predicted, the androids are now disabled. We now control the Spaceport and all entries and departures.”

“Excellent. Have you removed the quarantine shields as we discussed earlier?”

“Yes.”

“And have you issued a notice that equipment failure and malfunction, not illness, was solely responsible for this event?”

“Yes, we’ve already done that as well. Your instructions were quite clear.”

“There is something else?”

“A special request for permission to land from a foreign delegate. One which was so unusual, I thought it warranted your immediate attention.”

“Oh?” Raoul noticed how Serge nervously moistened his lips. This must be an exceptional stranger indeed to so fluster this Elite, “Who?”

“A Priestess of Tenebrios.”

“We have no embassy with Tenebrios.” Raoul did not even blink. This appeared to unsettle the Platina even further.

“No,” he agreed. “This delegation has been sent to establish one. They claim official status a humanitarian mission in response to the quarantine.”

“Permission denied. As the quarantine is over, applications for humanitarian missions no longer apply. Even so, the delegate will not be authorized to land on Amoi or any of its colonies, not even as a private citizen or refugee. No one from Tenebrios or its colonies is to be admitted in any capacity. If Tenebrios desires an embassy, they must make a formal application through Florien Von’s Ministry and arrange for treaties to occur in neutral space. Failure to comply will be construed as an act of hostility.”

“Understood.”

“Launch a trio of fighters to escort her to the boundaries of our space at the edge of the asteroid belt. If she attempts to land or tries evasive maneuvers, they are to destroy her ship. I want her out of our airspace and I want that message to be unmistakable.”

The other man hesitated.

“Do you have a problem with this?”

“It’s just that I’m in charge of customs, not defense.”

“I have already extended my seal to the Port Authority. You are clear to act. Oh, and Serge?”

“Yes?”

“Connect my terminal to the holostream when you extend these orders so that I can observe and record her reaction.”

Serge was clearly surprised. Raoul could see the gears turning, connecting Tenebrios and its cult to the problems with Jupiter. It wouldn’t do to get too complacent.

“At this time, we must restrict access to Offworlders.” It was bad enough that so many of the smaller cities of Amoi had aligned themselves with the Federation. Until Raoul figured out what their role had been in Jupiter’s collapse, he was determined to keep them at the greatest possible distance. “Our life support is tenuous. You understand our dilemma.”

The Silver Elite straightened his shoulders and set his jaw. It was curious how much this almost subliminal response comforted Raoul. “Customs has legal measures for every contingency. I can snarl every entry application in so much red tape, they will have to wait off-world for weeks. Is this along the lines of what you have in mind?”

“Within discretion, Renaud. I think if you flat-out refuse all entry to pleasure tourists, snarl our trading partners in red-tape, and steer official delegates and ambassadors to Florien Von’s Ministry on the Mistral Satellite Colony, our concerns will be met. After all, it is for their safety as well as our own security.”

Serge snorted, “Xavier Rex has been having nose-bleeds over us all day. This is going to give him a brain hemorrhage.”

“Now that is the best news I’ve heard all day,” Tibór had silently entered the periphery of Raoul’s vision, just enough to let him know where he was. “I must sign off. Remember my instructions regarding the Priestess and all Tenebrians, and to connect my terminal to the comm-link.”

e signed off and turned to the Furniture.

“What is it, Tibór?”

“You asked me to remind you when it was time to prepare for your dinner with Sir Florien and Hazall.”

Raoul cast a look of longing at the screen where the enigma of fate-webs awaited his attention. Was this the secret behind all those strings shooting out beneath the pianoforte? Did this have anything to do with the filaments that had corrupted the datastream transmission? He would rather work out this interesting puzzle like this, than meet with Hazall any day. Nor was this the last time he sorely missed Iason.


	8. The Sapphire and The Smuggler

Amniotic tanks were used either for gestation or advanced healing. Inside them, it was like being submerged within the ocean, with the sounding thunder of currents like breakers on a distant shore. Sometimes there was the murmur of a voice, amplified and distorted. Floating voices, like mermaids, were they dreams? --- Or memories of dreams? Or was it the amniotic tanks themselves? He came to long enough to wonder, and then merged back into the darkness.

_Pain._

It surpassed the agony of his birth, the first emergence from the tanks. It surpassed the abuse and beatings his appearance and mannerisms had attracted from the followers of more prestigious students at the Elite Academy. For some reason, he couldn't open his eyes.

There was barely a scrap of skin on his body left without bandages or unsupported by traction, braces, blocks and splints. The stabbing sensations in his side at every breath spoke of fractured ribs. When he lifted his few untouched fingers to his face, it felt swollen twice as large as it should be. Then he knew the reason for his blindness was bandages.

His last memory had been the image of his face reflected in a glass of wine. No, it was the smell of the underground parkade and an insolent voice calling out to him. Or perhaps it was the amniotic tank, bubbling with plasma and serums. Every memory was disjointed. Maybe at some point they joined in a cohesive whole but, for now, he couldn’t quite remember.

A gentler, more familiar voice penetrated the thick mats of gauze which covered his ears, pleading, "Please do not strain yourself. I will fetch the physician."

There was a scuffling sound and approaching footsteps, then an unfamiliar voice. "Your body has adapted to this medication already. We are increasing the dosage slightly so that you can continue to sleep. Please try not to move or speak. The effort will drain you of energy that you need to heal."

A gentle hand daubed a moist cloth to his lips and placed a straw at his lips. "You are receiving fluids, nourishment and medication intravenously, but your mouth must be dry. Here is some fresh water."

Who was this person who tended to him? He recognized the voice, but couldn't remember the face to which it belonged.

He sipped and felt the lining of his mouth recover from its drought. Darkness pulled him back.

It was almost as though he had a hover bike strapped to his chest; his very cells felt glued to the bed, his body unable to respond. When he tried to pry his eyes open, they crossed. Had he been turned into a street gladiator, addled by punches? He kept struggling, and soon managed to focus his vision long enough to regret it.

Who chose the colour-scheme for this place anyway? The walls were bright red, the colour of blood, of rage, of murder. It made him jumpier than a virgin in a bar full of horndogs.

His gut was so sore; it felt like he had used it to digest rocks. All his thoughts were woolly and thick. He must've been popping old-fashioned opiates like candy for days. At least he was still alive. At least he looked in better shape than the poor sap lying in that other bed, mummified in bandages, strung up in ropes and pulleys, bolstered and immobilized between great chunks of polymer-matrix. At least he figured he looked better, judging from the lack of bandages on his own body.

Holy shit! If his eyes weren't deceiving him, that was an honest-to-god Sapphire, the long hair draped across his pillow the same brilliant hue as a midsummer zenith. What the hell happened to him? Who was the wise-ass that decided it was a good idea to put them in the same room together?

He didn't like the Tanaguran Elite or their steely towers. Sure enough, this one came with his very own castrated piece of Furniture, complete with hand-wringing service over his pillow. _There's a great use of a man's life!_

It was too soon for him to think so much. It felt like someone was thumping a hardball around the inside of his skull. He sank his head back onto the pillow.

"Mercure!"

Who was that? Surely that obnoxious voice didn't belong to someone who was actually trying to speak to him, some bozo who didn't know his real name.

"Mercure!"

_It's Merc, plain and simple; get it right!_

_No, scratch that. Leave me the fuck alone._

That groan, did it come from his throat?

"I know you're awake, Mercure. It's time for your physio."

As much as he hated the Tanaguran Elite, Merc had to hand it to them; their biomedical technology was about the best in the Glan system. He was feeling a whole lot better. It still wasn't good enough for some, however.

That evening, while he pretended to sleep, he watched the Sapphire pick up a mirror and examine his face closely. The Elite's capacity for quick healing meant he was already able to sit up. In spite of that, this one was left terribly scarred. It looked as though someone had tried to scalp him with a set of claws. Livid red marks crossed his cheeks and forehead from one side of his face to the other.

Merc knew the signs of depression, having seen many a miner succumb to it during his years as a security agent and smuggler, and this one—what was his name? Hilarion—was on the verge. The sight of his own face disgusted him.

"What are you staring at?"

Just as he suspected, the Sapphire resented him being there.

"Privilege." Merc's voice cracked, his throat was so dry. He could still convey scorn. "Rank, stinking privilege."

"Yet, here you are." The man's intonation was more clipped than usual. "So, either I'm not as privileged as you assume, or you're a hypocrite since you share it."

"Yeah? You asked." Merc was pissed off. He despised the Blue. What right did the man have to feel sorry for himself? He was still alive. He was still part of the Tanaguran Elite, enough to choke anyone else. He still had most of his mental capacities.

Most, but not all. This, Merc could understand since he was in the same boat. Neither of them could remember what happened to them, although the Elite seemed to have recovered many of his memories prior to his attack.

Merc's own extended memory was much more badly damaged, to the point that he had trouble understanding longer speeches and remembering habits, like grooming. It made him even edgier and more anxious than this situation would usually call for, because he sensed there was something very important he had to remember. It was critical, a matter of life and death. So he couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice when he said, "You make it sound like I asked to get stuck here."

"You didn't?" The other replied with supreme disdain. He then betrayed the presence of a headache by rubbing his brows. "Fancy that, neither did I."

Merc couldn't resist another jab. "Don't you ever get tired of feeling sorry for yourself?"

"I should ask if you get tired of asking personal questions, the answers of which are none of your business but, frankly, I don't care." 

This luminous exchange was interrupted by the man's Furniture, the same one who Merc had noticed when he first regained consciousness. "There is a call for you from Lord Am."

"Thank you, Kosai." The Sapphire flicked on the holostream recorder, "Lord Am, thank you for calling. I'm afraid our conversation won't be private."

"Yes, I realize that." the Blondie's voice sounded dismissive. "I specifically requested that you and the agent, Mercure, share quarters during your recoveries. If you have any objections, I must ask you to set them aside; there are far more critical matters at stake than your differences. We require complete cooperation."

The Sapphire pursed his lips and looked away, shoulders shaking with resistance and insulted pride. Raoul's voice was unusually soft and deep when Merc heard him say, “You are healing so well. I was stricken when it looked like we might not be able to save you.

That shocked Hilarion back to attention. Merc was pretty sure his own face looked freshly slapped. His memories might be full of holes, but he was pretty sure that hearing a Tanaguran Blondie speak to someone—or, in his case, hearing of a Tanaguran Blondie speak to anyone—with anything besides cool, impersonal detachment wasn't ever part of them.

"In both your cases, there was a similar sort of brain damage," Raoul explained. "A similar sort of weapon was used against you. The best technology was used to restore your minds, but it may take some time before they are integrated. I'm sure you've both noticed the gaps. Unfortunately, with Jupiter out of commission, there is nothing we can do at present, except ride it out, hope for the best.

Jupiter, out of commission? What was going on? Something familiar flashed through Merc's head for a moment, and then disappeared. He tried to chase it, to connect to whatever image or sound pattern it brought up. He knew it involved those all-important pieces of information that he couldn't remember. He threw his head back and groaned with frustration.

The holostream projection of Raoul reacted to this. "Do you have anything to tell me, Mercure?"

The smuggler shook his head. "I thought I did, but it keeps— _pfffftt!"_ He flicked his fingers through the air to signal futility. Part of him wondered if he really cared. Not for the Tanaguran Syndicate, that was for sure. He had no energy for them.

"Yes, which brings me to why I've assigned you both to the same room, your respective roles in our investigation: both critical ... essential actually. I am horrified that two such accomplished agents should have suffered so much for their participation. It is my hope that you will stimulate each other's memories, help each other to heal, and provide us with any details which we need to ... well, to save Amoi. The situation is quite dire."

"Amoi?" Merc pulled himself back up against the pillows. This changed things.

"Yes, Mr. Mercure," Raoul replied. "My senior environmental technicians estimate total collapse of the planet's life-support technology within the week. In any case, things will never return to the way they were."

Raoul looked directly at Hilarion. The Sapphire's face was hard and bitter. 

"Are you able to set aside your differences?" The Blondie's voice had the slightest edge, making it clear that this wasn't a request.

"Naturally." Hilarion's face and voice were composed with that serene implacable quality that the Elite reserved for pretty much everything.

 _Aw, shit!_ Merc thought, as he watched the walls shift colour from bright red to purple to a deep, pure shade of blue. _I'm in for it now._

"Excellent!" The Blondie shot the Sapphire a last sidelong look. "I am transferring what data I have compiled so far, since time is of the essence. Perhaps it will help to jar your memories."

He couldn't remember how he ended up on the floor with the scary Elite almost sitting on his chest and the man's fingers clenched around his throat. He figured he probably made some smart crack about his face, maybe called him a pretty boy or something insulting. There were a lot of other things which he suddenly remembered with astonishing clarity, thanks to the god-awful bump he got on the back of his head as the Sapphire smashed it against the floor. The lack of oxygen to his brain from being strangled wasn't helping much.

There had been two gun-battles, the most recent when he tried to get back in touch with Katze—yeah, that was the one which almost killed him, and they knew all about it—but the first was in his ship as he tried to skirt Amoi's colonial asteroids upon his return from the Piercks asteroid belt. He came across the black ship which he immediately recognized as a Tenebrian Corsair. After that, all hell broke loose, especially as he tried to shake off the Corsair's escort fighters, which looked Federation in design. He barely made it back to the planet surface in one piece.

"I ... remember," he managed to mouth.

The Sapphire stopped clenching his fingers around his windpipe for a moment. "Do you have something to say, Mongrel?"

It took him a couple of minutes to get his breath back. "I remember what happened now. I know how to get the information that Raoul—"

The Sapphire made threatening motions as though to strangle him again.

"Lord Am, that is ... the data he needs."

Hilarion's face showed suspicion. He took forever scrutinizing the smuggler’s face for signs of deception.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? Can we just call a truce for the time being? I need to contact Raoul ... Lord Am, and tell him what this is all about. If you aren't satisfied, you can finish killing me afterwards. It's not like I'm going anywhere."

Dazed, Hilarion got off of Merc and even helped to lift the smuggler to his feet. He brought the man to the nearest comm-link and overrode the Onyx orderly's protests to connect him through to Eos. Without this Elite intervention, Merc realized that he couldn't even wipe his nose at this facility. Whatever the Blondie hinted that might've changed in Tanagura, this wasn't one of them.

All along the southeastern skyline, the firmament raged.

As he was sped down the last stretch of Orange Road toward the Eos main gate, a vision of Raoul seated at the pianoforte surged through Katze's mind. The sense of something akin to déja-vu was so powerful, it pulsed through his whole body. Was this to be Raoul's final act of leadership? While Midas burned and Amoi dropped into oblivion, was he really going to sit and play the piano? Another image kept superimposing itself over this one, an Emperor, degenerate and mad, demanding worship. Had this happened before? Or was this another thing entirely, something resurfacing from the deeper regions of his psyche?

 _Something is happening,_ his premonition overwhelmed his reason. It was as though Raoul's will was carried along with the music he created. In his mind's eye, Katze could almost see it move like a tangible force flowing through the instrument, sweeping along the powerful fibres which rooted it to Eos Tower. Energy flew through those filaments, but where? _Something strange is about to—_

"Stop the car!"

"Again?" Paviter cried. "What is with you?"

"Stop, now!" What was he doing? Going out of his mind, apparently. Something impelled Katze to stop rationalizing all his actions because, since the piano had arrived, everything had stopped making any sense. He was acting mostly on intuition and impulse now. "You're never going to see another moment like this in your life."

The vehicle shuddered to an abrupt halt, sideways near the rail of the overpass, nearly causing a major pile-up. The engines of the other hover-cars thundered with imploding vacuums and howled with misaligned vortices as their Cars wheeled and wove to avoid collision. Caustic threats and jeers were shouted at them. Katze jumped out and motioned for Paviter to follow, ignoring the insults and commotion.

Dusk had turned the sky purple everywhere else except above the burning sections of Flare. Curious, the other drivers followed Katze's gestures and turned to see what was so important.

"Watch this!" Katze told Paviter.

One moment the skyline above Flare raged a bright orange-red.

The next it was dark, the flames utterly extinguished.

The deathly silence which followed lasted a full minute.

Paviter let out a whoop of jubilation and jumped, punching his fist into the sky. "Jupiter! They finally brought back Jupiter!"

Other voices echoed Paviter's shouts.

"Not Jupiter," Katze said quietly, shaking his head for emphasis. "Something more powerful than Jupiter."

"Yeah, right," Paviter muttered. "Without Jupiter, not even the Blondies are that powerful."

Katze bit off his retort. He almost wondered if Paviter was a child of Ceres, his faith in Jupiter was so absolute, like a citizen of Midas. He could try to set the Car straight, dredging up the many times he had witnessed Jupiter's force of androids in action. For all their technological wonderments and gadgetry, they never displayed a level of skill, power and speed comparable to this. This was something else entirely, another force at work, alien and inexplicable. But was it worth an argument? --- An argument that would most likely be futile? Paviter seemed to have made up his mind; let the Car believe whatever he liked.

Katze's thoughts flew back to Merc's last cryptic words about the piano, his insistence that it was not the enemy, his caution not to destroy it, the strange events which it seemed to put in motion. Although he didn't know why, Katze knew there was a reason why he had that vision at that precise moment.

It was the same reason, now that the firestorm had been averted, another sense, another signal touched his awareness.

He turned his back on Flare. "We've got to get back to Raoul now."

Had the fire been real? He brushed off the ashes which coated his red hair and silken robe with fragile gray feathers.

The old responses were no longer adequate, not in times of Psychetech War. Katze knew he could not trust his senses and perceptions. Thoughts, feelings, reactions, everything was on shaky ground now.

Was any of this real?

In the absence of certain sanity, the heart was the only source of direction left. He ran his fingers along his cheek, suddenly homesick for that ragged trench of scar-tissue, the mark that had both defiled him and defined who he was.

Raoul worked on the piano in the Great Hall, while Katze prepared himself. They were going to the dinner meeting with Hazall together, but that wasn't all.

An undercurrent of tension and energy was coursing between them. Something is happening. Normally, the Blondie wouldn't have been caught dead with Katze at his side. Now, he was making it quite clear he didn't want the faux-Elite to leave.

Without being told, Katze knew what was expected of him, a sense of what was going to happen. This strange awareness had communicated with him right after the fire in Flare was suffocated. He stopped in his room briefly to rinse away the toxic cinders and fumes and to change into formal dinner attire.

He removed the combs which helped fix the hairpiece in place and found, to small surprise, that the false strands had been replaced by natural hair. It fell, glistening, around his shoulders and down his back. If he had the wild urge to draw a moustache on his lip with a fountain-pen, he was sure it would sprout into a real one before the evening was through. Fortunately, that wasn't so much an urge as a random thought about his situation. He still knew the difference.

Had he any faith left in his rational mind, Katze would've put a halt to this. He would've thrown questions at the situation, analyzed it thoroughly, and demanded explanations— _reasonable_ explanations—before proceeding further.

When had his sense of what was natural and normal become so skewed?

He would have liked to place the definitive marker at the moment he had lost his scar, but even that made no sense. His normal condition was mutilated. There was nothing natural about it. His scarred and butchered body had been the perfect emblem for Tanagura, a place whose normal condition, imposed by Jupiter’s dictatorship, was deeply unnatural.

According to rumours and their one historical record, the Priestess Cult of Tenebrios routinely unleashed horrors upon unsuspecting populations in order to eliminate or subjugate them, but they had to have some means of restoration after such assaults. In their ignorance and hubris, ancient civilizations may have employed scorched earth techniques to conquer others but, given how rare places were in the galaxy capable of being terraformed to support human life, it was the most impractical, insane and costly form of warfare. Scorched earth ruined everything. This point had been brutally driven into their hard, hard human skulls back during the Radiation Plagues on Earth, when it became clear that humanity couldn't always evolve fast enough to cope with its own nightmares. That was when Psychetech warfare first came into its own. So, in order to overcome the effects of their genocidal atrocities, the Priestesses had to have some means of restoring balance.

Katze slipped a fresh silk robe over his dress-shirt. It gleamed a bright red-violet counterwoven with fantailed goldfish, each scale a perfect reflection of the light streaming off his hair. He belted the robe loosely and walked to the Great Hall.

Could the purpose of the Holocaust Piano be to restore some sort of equilibrium? A prickle ran up his spine. Was that its function?

There was something unusually ferocious in Raoul's eyes that night. Their intensity made the smaller man shiver.

"All set?"

Katze nodded.

"I have something to tell you about the Pianoforte," he said. "It's just a hunch, but—"

"Your agent, Merc, called me as Paviter was bringing you back." Raoul cut him off. "It seems that his memories synchronized enough that he managed to recall almost everything he lost. I know what the Pianoforte's purpose is now."

"To heal, harmonize and rebalance a world after an enemy has been eliminated?"

Raoul nodded, then ran his hand down the back of Katze's spine to let it rest against the small of his back. Katze felt the heat which emanated from its palm and found it strong and comforting. They entered the elevator together, where Raoul drew him into an embrace.

"I suspected as much when I learned from your smuggler-friend that the MORS virus was not connected to the instrument," he explained, "that it was introduced by another hostile agent. Needless to say, I was very pleased to learn that the Pianoforte is not the destructive agent, that it is a healing power, and we must not let the Priestesses get their hands on it."

Katze had been losing himself in the hypnotic cadence of Raoul's deep and cultured voice and the incredible sensation of relaxing into the Blondie’s arms. For all the panic and mayhem of that day, he felt so safe and protected there. It was such an alien sensation for him. But he was delighted to flow with it.

The next bit of surprising news made him draw back and stare.

"I also picked up some interesting signs that the Piano is sentient, a living organism, and that it communicates through emotional energy and through images and sounds. I tested this by trying to direct some of its power to the conflagration in Flare. It worked to suppress it."

"I knew that was you," Katze's face was filled with wonder. "I had a vision and made Paviter pull over. He didn't want to, but I insisted. We stepped out of the car and the very next moment, the fire went out, just like that, as though it had been completely smothered. It made no sense whatsoever."

"Yes, that was me playing the Pianoforte. I went into some sort of trance. We seem to share some a connection, you and I," Raoul explained. "And, no, there is nothing rational about it. Yet something which my rational mind can't quite grasp tells me that this is a vast improvement. What do you think, Katze?"

Katze smiled. He was about to dart up and plant a kiss on Raoul's lips, when a new thought distracted him.

"What makes me curious," he said, "is whether the Psychetech War actually started ages ago, before we were even born. I wonder if it began the moment Jupiter had taken over Tanagura. Think of it: Tenebrios is dominated by a matriarchy—not even a matriarchy, a society of Priestesses, of celibate women. It isn't balanced any more than Amoi is. So, our world is dominated by a society of sterile men, but when Jupiter started to play god and manipulate the population base, how likely is it that the Cult of Tenebrios, a predominately female-centered population, considered Amoi a threat?

Raoul considered the thought. "Possibly the virus was introduced by the Priestesses; there are indications that they've used it in the past, certainly. This is the purpose of our dinner meeting with Hazall and Florien Von tonight, to discover if it didn't come through someone within the Federation instead, someone with a grudge. I am certain, however, that the Priestesses will move in if they can obtain rulership over our planet."

"Ugh, Hazall." Katze grimaced, and let off a heavy sigh. "I can think of a thousand other ways I would rather spend this evening."

"Oh?" Raoul grinned flirtatiously.

Katze used his lips to communicate in another fashion for a change.

It was midnight. Merc was awakened from a light sleep troubled by vague terrors. They followed him like vicious attack dogs lurking on the edges of his awareness. The source of his wake-up call was the Sapphire who was getting back into bed. Merc noticed he was trying to be quiet about it, which was surprisingly thoughtful of the prick.

"Hey, Sapphire!" He called out on impulse. "Are you okay?"

"The name is Sir Hilarion," the man answered, "or at least, Mr. Fyss, if you can't stomach that. And no, I'm not okay. The comm-links are down."

"What?"

"The signals aren't being relayed properly anymore. There's no power left for our communication devices. It's all going to essential life-support now."

"Shit. That's bad luck. So, what's up?"

"It's just that your message to Lord Am earlier this evening made me remember something important. I just wasn't sure what that was until a little while ago. Now I can't do anything about it anyway, because I can't get through to him."

"Yeah? Well, you know, I'm a pretty resourceful guy. Maybe there's something I can do to help."

"Do you think so?" Hilarion's voice was so neutral, Merc wasn't sure if he was being snide or not. The man's eyes shone like silver from the reflected light off the corridor.

"Why don't you tell me? Can't hurt."

The Sapphire sighed and stroked his long fingers through his blue-black hair.

"There are computer components which plug into the Pianoforte. Through the one remaining set of technical specifications I circulated through my off-world contacts, I managed to locate one, but I have to get a Customs agent to fetch it from the colonial asteroid."

"In that case, I'm your man," Merc answered.

"Is that so?"

"Indeed," Merc made the little word sound clipped and snotty, like a caricature of a cultured man, like a caricature of Fyss. "It just so happens, I've got a spaceship."


	9. Showdown on Von

Once they cleared Amoi’s parched, smoke-tainted atmosphere, Merc sighed with relief. The spaceport authority had no problems with Amoians leaving their sinking ship of a planet. As his own heap of space debris-pocked junk fired up, they weren’t even hailed and questioned by customs controls; departure procedures usually took hours, longer because he wasn’t Elite. Their return trip wouldn’t be so easy.

“Who’s our contact?” He asked Hilarion as the Sapphire relayed coordinates to the Von Ambassadorial Estate Satellite Colony.

The Elite remained cool and taciturn, although he had dropped the sarcastic edge to his remarks. For the purpose of this mission, Merc felt he could at least pretend that the man was merely reserved and shy.

After a few moments of careful consideration, Hilarion replied, “Admiral Hahna.”

“Hahna!— _The_ Admiral?”

“Yes.”

“The Admiral’s on Von?”

“Yes.”

“We’re meeting The Admiral on Amoi’s official diplomatic port of entry colony?”

“Yes, yes, yes! Stop asking the same question, and, no, there’s no ‘we’. I’m meeting The Admiral on the Von moon. Whether or not you go is up to him.”

Merc gave a low whistle. It took guts for Kressellian Raiders to harass a fleet as imperial as the Federation’s. For Admiral Hahna to park himself on a Federation stronghold under the snooty noses of its super-intelligent allies, the Tanaguran Elite, required not only guts, but great huge cajones as well. Merc was impressed. Or he would be, if he weren’t so confused.

After his stint on the mining asteroids, the smuggler was certain he had seen everything and no tale of corruption, double-dealings, or backstabbing could ever shock him again. During their work together, he long suspected that Katze was in league with the Tanaguran Syndicate, but the scarred mobster had never let so much as a squeak pass his lips. Since his shoot-out with Federation agents, he learned that not only had his smuggling ops been conducted entirely under the gaze and with the tacit approval of the Blondies, but it appeared that the Syndicate, itself, was in league with the enemies of their own Federation Alliance. He wasn’t sure which end was up in this newly reconfigured understanding of the Glan Outworld System.

The Admiral was the most notorious smuggler in that quadrant, renowned as a ruthless daredevil and master strategist. He controlled the entire outer planetary sector with that adept team of privateers called the Kressellian Raiders. Depending on who a person listened to, the Kressellians were either brutal thugs or heroic champions of the oppressed, but the only listening Merc did was the sort with a potential pay-off.

As a naïve teenager fresh from Sharffai City, Merc started his space career in a Federation security detail guarding miners in the Piercks Asteroid Belt. After being left to die during a raid facilitated by his own commanding officer, one rigged to look like the work of Kressellians in order to avoid turning over that month’s bounty, the young Mercure had a major attitude adjustment. 

The first and most obvious result was that he started treating the rumours and bad press which followed the Kressellians like political propaganda. Maybe the stories were lies; maybe they were true. Probably, he would never find out which was which, but, since bastards like his former CO were twisting them to their advantage, he wasn’t going to accept anything at face value.

The second thing was, from that moment on, he stopped working exclusively for the Federation. Because his life and livelihood depended on it, he kept the façade that they validated all his credit passkeys, enough to pass a routine border investigation, but he was for hire through and through. He even shortened his name to emphasize that mercenary nature.

“How did a Sapphire like you manage to hook up with Public Enemy No. 1?”

Hilarion tipped his head back with a gesture of irritation and took a deep breath. “What do you mean a Sapphire like me? In your entire life, have you ever met a Sapphire? No, wait! Forget this Sapphire nonsense, in your entire life have you ever met anyone like me?”

So much for shy and reserved.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Merc spoke between gritted teeth, “I have been trying to be civil. You are a guest on my ship.”

Another deep breath.

“Yes, understood. I’ve never felt any particular affinity with other Sapphires, if you must know.”

Merc gaped at him for a moment, wondering if the irony managed to sink in a little.

“Yeah, a double-edged sword, that hair-colour thing, isn’t it?” He finally managed. “Never went for it much myself. As for designing a social order on that basis, we’re in one-hundred per cent agreement here; total crap- reasoning! Now try tossing in some artificial genetic enhancements, an elitist education, some exclusive citizen passkeys….”

“You’re not from Tanagura.”

“Not originally, but what does that have to do with the price of Pets in Kaan and Rijina?”

“Enhancements usually enhance.”

“What?”

“Whether you acknowledge it or not, whether you like it or not, genetic enhancements are an improvement.” 

“That so?” Merc lit up a smoke. “Depends on what you define as an improvement, doesn’t it?”

“That’s true.” The aggression drained off the Sapphire’s shoulders. “Funny, I’ve always thought of myself as a fair-minded individual. It’s very strange to have these imbalances reflected back to me.”

“Fyss, you beat the crap out of me because I didn’t call Raoul ‘Lord Am.’ If you’re so fair-minded, what the hell was that about?”

“Brain damage,” a trace of smile flickered at the corners of Hilarion’s mouth, “of the genetically enhanced sort.”

“I’m not laughing.”

His passenger shrugged and turned his attention back to co-piloting.

“And I noticed you evaded the question.”

“Which one?”

“What do you mean—? The Admiral—oh, forget it! You seem to forget we’re on the same side.”

“Are we?” Hilarion sent Merc a shrewd glance from where he had been analyzing spectral scans for the presence of ships. “It isn’t my story alone to tell. Can you understand that?”

“Clear as Ceres!” Merc puffed on his cigarillo so hard, it took less than half a minute to burn straight to the filter. He tossed the spent butt into a trash containment compartment with a loud, “Tsk!”

“What is your problem now?” Hilarion asked.

“Nothing. Just something weird I remembered.”

“Anything relevant?”

“No, just ironic.”

When it became clear that the Elite was not going to press him for further explanation, he supplied one anyway, “The company I worked for in the Piercks Belt used to mine for sapphires among other things. I once thought they were beautiful, damned beautiful!” 

Merc could tell the Sapphire was listening, even though he pretended to be completely absorbed in trajectory calculations, “Even though the only ones I ever got to see had great, huge flaws.”

Hilarion stopped pretending.

“When I nearly got myself killed protecting the guys who dug them up from their own employers, it hit home that they were just a buncha stupid rocks.” 

Raoul’s attention had been so focused on unraveling and solving problems that he never noticed the heaviness in his muscles. It was getting time for him to catch up on some sleep. Yet, even now, problems pressed so much that his mind kept turning back to them, the way soreness pulsing from a wound pulls attention back to it. Not that the Elite to whom he had delegated the survival of life on Amoi weren’t capable of handling their jobs. They were doing splendid, if not miraculous work.

Colin Venables’ engineers had accomplished wonders shifting the aetheric filtration system to the controls set when the planet was first terraformed. Just in the nick of time, too, since the fire in Flare had cranked up air pollution to dangerous levels and levels of cyanophytic algae which fed oxygen into their planet had taken another severe beating. 

The fire bothered him, how it just happened to start in the most luxurious commercial district in Tanagura. There would be major political fall-out if the aftermath wasn’t handled properly. It could even topple the Syndicate, a circumstance that made it too suspicious to be a mere accident. Tibór was investigating the fire under Paviter’s direction, along with a few trusted Elite security personnel from Eos, all capable detectives. Raoul was certain they would find the cause. There was no reason to obsess over suspicions.

Biotechnicians were being diverted from the Kalgas to deal with the algae situation, which added more stress to the already over-burdened medical facilities. Still, Raoul was confident they could resolve this provided they didn’t run out of power first.

The primary power-supply once channeled through Jupiter and now completely clotted with alien fibres, had been drained bare. Everything depended on the primitive power grid that their ancestors had rigged up, a clunky system which relied too much on cables and flimsy machines, but it kept critical systems up and running. If people couldn’t handle a few periodic rolling blackouts, that was tough.

Comm-links and the holostream had fallen off the previous night. Some of the older unmanned satellites still worked with radio waves, and the brilliant Serge Renaud had coordinated his Sapphires to jerry-rig a transmitter and link emergency communicators.

What with the industrial sector in Neil Darts closed down, the fire in Flare, the tenuous situation of the clone nurseries under Guardian, the moratorium on flights into Amoi, and the rolling blackouts, their economy had pretty much flat-lined. There would be hell to pay.

Perhaps it was better that fewer messages zapped back and forth. The more things were spread by word-of-mouth, the slower the pace that misinformation spread. And it was as sure as death that misinformation would spread.

Which led Raoul to think of the continuing thorn in his side, Xavier Rex, and his legions of petty managers who couldn’t see past their credit accounts…

He rubbed his temples and decided to use the trip back to Amoi after the formal dinner to catch up on his sleep.

Hey!” Katze reached over and stroked a cool hand across his forehead. “Any chance of dropping the rampant anxiety for awhile? At least until we land on Von?”

Raoul started, stunned. When had he lost his Blondie composure? He dared not risk showing weakness in front of the Federation at this evening’s dinner. As the leader of the Syndicate, he had to appear charismatic, which was to say, untouchable. Yet how could this happen when his body vibrated with tension? Too much for him even to sleep.

He looked back at Katze. His toy-Elite’s attitude had changed over the course of these long days, especially after the misunderstanding over Merc’s mind-wipe had been cleared up. He had been quite affectionate during the drive to the airport, almost as though he were developing an emotional attachment. Raoul smiled. Maybe it was time to begin the test.

Over the wrist-transmitter which was so similar to the ring which activated Katze’s Pet Ring, he relayed new instructions to his Car. “Paviter, place the ship on autopilot. I want you to enter the Soma Chamber and set it for an hour. We have no need of your service until it comes time for landing procedures.”

Paviter’s face left no doubt as to how unhappy he felt over this.

Katze remembered how infantile it had made him feel to be ordered to bed upon arrival at Raoul’s penthouse, and that was for a natural sleep. He almost felt a flash of sympathy except that the overgrown kid had been awake so much longer than him.

“If there’s an ambush, you will need me at the helm. I’m the best fighter—” The Car was actually arguing with a Blondie, with Raoul of all people. He must’ve been more exhausted than he looked. If they came under ambush, the mistakes he was likely to make from fatigue placed them at greater risk.

It seemed that Paviter had just become aware of that, too. With a startled snap to, he apologized and reset the controls, then disappeared into the Soma chamber.

Somatic sleep technology had come a long way since the advent of deep space travel but it still couldn’t match the result of a good, long, natural sleep. Natural sleep healed everything—body, mind and emotions—whereas the artificial comas rested only the body. 

The earliest experiments in long term artificial sleep induction had resulted in test-subjects waking up like newborns, completely wiped of all their learning and accumulated personality, unable even to look after anything but what came without thought. Those earliest sleep-induction chambers became the basis for Tanaguran mind-wipe technology. 

Biotechnologists soon realized that these results would prove disastrous in their attempts to colonize space, so they modified the frequencies so as not to affect thinking patterns. The mind still felt overstretched when a person awoke; instead of releasing the daily cache of information and activity into the subconscious and moving into a more peaceful condition, it was as though an inner ‘pause’ button had been hit. Thoughts, at least those generated within the individual and not plucked out of the more subliminal activities, resumed at the exact place where they had left off.

In terms of short-term rests, however, there was a different sort of cost to modified sleep induction. Once the thoughts resumed exactly as they were, emotions quickly followed suit and it took a lot less time for the body to feel tired again. Sleep induction bought a little extra time and physical refreshment but that was all. And if a person depended on these machines for short-term sleeps over a long period, their brains became damaged, susceptible to psychotic breaks or chronic depression.

A person as tired as Paviter could easily doze off into natural sleep, which was why Katze felt puzzled by Raoul’s order. Also, he took Paviter’s warnings about the possibility of ambush very seriously. After recent events, he couldn’t help but feel alert and hyper-vigilant. So much so, that when Raoul reached over and brushed the hair off of his forehead, just as he had done to the Blondie earlier, he jerked back and bumped his head on the spaceship’s titanium panels.

“Don’t be nervous,” Raoul murmured. Katze felt long fingers slip through his red locks to massage the place where he had hit his skull. Nervous? Why should he feel nervous? Unfamiliar sensations had started traveling up his spine, like carbonated water, sensations akin to nervousness, except pleasant and sparkling.

Okay, he felt nervous. Anybody would be in his situation.

“There are some things you should know about Elite protocol,” the Blondie murmured between slow, moist kisses left as he trailed his lips along the lean muscles of Katze’s neck, under his jaw, and along the shell of his ear. “Things you never learned during your training as Furniture.”

Katze tried to relax into the smooth touches. The topic of conversation wasn’t helping any.

“As a member of my entourage, the only orders you are obligated to obey are mine. If we should become separated though, you will be vulnerable.” 

Suddenly, it was hard for Katze to concentrate. Raoul’s kisses made him feel lightheaded, as though they had finally burst clear of Amoi’s gravity. The man’s voice was so deep and sultry, it lulled his thoughts into a receptive state.

“Other Elite will envy you and wonder why, out of the pick of them all, I should choose you. If you are out of the circle of my protection, they will challenge you. Count on it.”

He hadn’t even noticed when Raoul’s long white fingers had slipped under his robe and began to unbutton his dress shirt until he felt their touch run up his abdomen, trace the outline of his chest and then flick at his nipples. His heart gave a peculiar jump.

“…at two paces behind your superior at all times.”

Hunh?

“Sorry? I drifted off there.” 

You aren’t paying attention, Katze.” Raoul reached down and unclasped the seatbelt. “Maybe I should watch—” kiss “—to see how closely you’ve been listening—” kiss “—and punish you for any mistakes you make.”

“You’re distracting me,” Katze complained, and hated himself the moment the words spilled out. Damn! Was he that much of a whiner?

With a quick tug that felt like the entire spaceship had spun out of control, he suddenly found himself pulled out of his seat and straddling Raoul’s lap. The man’s strength and speed devastated him. His head reeled. Was he supposed to feel in danger, or aroused?

“There will be many things to distract you tonight, things beyond what you were accustomed to witnessing at even the most decadent Pet Parties you ever served under Lord Mink in Tanagura,” Raoul spoke severely. “Even if you do not partake in this formal dinner, even if you stand behind me throughout the entire affair, be confident that there will be distractions. It is what diplomats do! It is one of their most effective strategies.”

Katze was still panting with shock. Even so, even with Raoul’s caution fresh in his mind, he nearly lost it when the man ran his hands up his thighs, clasped his buttocks and slowly squeezed.

“Believe me when I say that, even with my protection, you must not offend a senior Elite by breaking protocol at a formal State supper. Do you understand, Katze?”

God! The man had shifted a hand to the front of his trousers. His erection had somehow grown without his even being aware of it, of nothing more than the vague pleasurable sensation, a sensation that now gave him the urge to thrust and arch his back. Now that it had been brought to his attention, his erection had grown positively acute and Raoul was gripping it very firmly. He threw his head back and groaned. 

Katze hated this, being treated like a child while his body was at the mercy of this Blondie’s touches. It was undignified and embarrassing and he couldn’t get enough of it. He wanted more of those touches. He wanted the man’s strength.

“Yes! Yes! I’ve got it,” he cried. “But it sounds like a pain in the ass!”

Raoul chuckled and started to undo the fastening in those trousers.

“It is all that,” he said, slipping Katze’s hard cock out of the confines of that fabric. Slowly, he began to stroke the velvety skin. “Literally, if you aren’t cautious. It’s the Jades and Sapphires around whom you will have to be most careful. The Platinas and other Blondies will likely pretend you don’t even exist, but the green and blue Elite will be most anxious to assert their superiority over you. So, listen carefully!”

Listen? Katze could barely hear. White noise was pounding in his ears. He was even disconnected from the soft sounds that escaped from his own throat. Nothing seemed as crucial or important as the sensations like electrical shocks that seemed to radiate from the root of his testicles up the length of his cock, concentrating in the sensitive nerve endings at the head. It was too bewildering, too dizzying.

“It is not unheard-of that certain Elite kidnap other subordinate Elites. There doesn’t even have to be a reason, some minor affront, something stupid. They will kidnap, restrain, and quite possibly drug you. Then they will order their harem to reassert their dominion over you in a way that you find both humiliating and painful.” 

Somehow, the meaning of Raoul’s words had penetrated the miasma swirling around Katze’s mind. It enraged him that such demeaning things were allowed to transpire, that he should actually need to receive instruction in how to avoid it. He couldn’t believe his body continued to respond in full sensual abandonment in spite of those enraging words. Yet, there he was arching backwards as tension built in the muscles of his thighs and buttocks. The heat was unbearable. A sheen of sweat glimmered over the surface of his skin. His panting voice had grown louder.

Abruptly, Raoul’s grip grew tight. A keen of pain burst from Katze’s throat as the Blondie’s other powerful hand curled behind his neck and yanked him forward so that his ear was right next to the man’s lips.

“I don’t want anyone else to touch you. Understand?”

Katze’s face burned almost as red as his new hair, hair that now draped across Raoul’s shoulders. He couldn’t speak. All he could do between the forced gasps of breath is close his eyes in shame at his wantonness, at his lack of self-restraint, and give this overmastering man an affirmative nod of his head.

“Excellent,” Raoul pulled him into a deep kiss, stroking his tongue across the surfaces of Katze’s mouth. Then he sped up the strokes until Katze’s release tore through him. 

After a minute or two listening to his heart yammer, Katze clued into the fact that he had slumped against Raoul’s shoulders.

“Shthh-sssorry,” he pulled away. Raoul held up his huge hand to where Katze could see it, covered with his ejaculation. It took another minute before he realized that Raoul wanted him to clean it off, so fighting the urge to gag, Katze stuck out his tongue and lapped away the traces. 

As he did this, Raoul gave a last piece of advice with respect to protocol. “The important thing is not to speak first or look another senior Elite directly in the eye when they address you. You may, of course, treat Onyx and other Rubies, even those belonging to other Blondies, like your personal slaves. But even if you follow no orders but those that I authorize, you must respect the tier of Elite.”

“Respect the goddamned tier!” Katze mumbled.

“Now there’s something I want you to do for me.” The corners of the Blondie’s mouth quirked upward. His eyes were dark and hooded. He pushed Katze to his feet and tugged on his sleeve, signaling his desires. Katze blushed, then sank to his knees between Raoul’s outstretched legs.

Afterwards, as Paviter docked the ship, Katze turned to Raoul and said, “Just to double-check, do you mind if I run through that list of protocol once more?”

They were standing at the doors waiting for the vacuum seal to break.

“Now? Isn’t it getting a bit late?”

“There weren’t that many special instructions.”

“Very well, proceed.”

“Always stand or follow at a minimum of two paces behind you and to your left, unless you are joined by a senior Elite, in which case, I move behind the both of you.”

“Correct.”

“I am to stand four paces behind you and to the left at the supper table, just in front of Paviter, in the event that you have instructions for me.”

“Right.”

“I’m not to drink or eat.”

“No.”

“I’m not to speak unless spoken to by senior Elite above the Ruby tier.”

“No.”

“And I’m not to look any of the senior Elite directly in the eye.”

“Excellent, you’ve got it.”

“There are no exceptions to the no-looking rule?”

“None that I know of.”

“These rules commence the moment this door opens?”

“Yes. The moment we are in public, it is considered an official State function.”

“And if I insult a senior Elite, it is likely that they will assault me in some sort of offensive manner?”

“That better not happen!” Raoul growled, “Nobody is permitted to touch you.”

“Ah-hah,” Katze unfolded a pair of sunglasses so dark that, once they were perched on his nose, no one would be able to see his eyes.

Raoul laughed. “Very clever, but you do realize that you can’t wear those at the dinner?”

The seal finally broke and the door swung open to an official reception committee.

“Yes, I realize,” Katze replied, looking Raoul directly, steadily and very publicly in the eye, before slipping them on.

At a formal state dinner, it was considered the height of rudeness to speak across one’s immediate neighbours, so Raoul was safely shielded from questions posed by Hazall, who sat to Florien’s right. This wasn’t to say that Hazall didn’t attempt to circumvent protocol.

“I am pleased to see that Tanagura’s First Blondie, Lord Am is as strong, powerful and capable as his predecessor,” Hazall lifted his glass in a formal toast. “To his health and longevity!”

The entire table lifted their wineglasses in salute.

Raoul sipped and nodded the briefest of acknowledgments, then resumed his conversation with the envoy from the Piercks Confederate to his left. He had already declared his intention to use this supper to reinforce Florien’s authority during the enclave. He had no intention of letting Hazall undermine that resolve.

“It is gratifying to a humble civil servant such as myself to see how your standards of excellence have reached an even higher bar.” With loud, granite-chunked announcements like these, Hazall tried to bully his way into Raoul’s conversation, but the envoy from Piercks, a dark haired and dark skinned young man with thick spectacles, turned out to be modest and charming company. He and Raoul shared an interest in the effects of environment in the mutation of human genes, so there was no trouble resisting Hazall’s most blatant ploys, especially when they began to discuss the effects of music and sound patterns.

Besides, Florien was handling the conversation adroitly, as should befit any Blondie engineered and trained to the Von line of diplomatic status. Hazall didn’t appear to be aware of how skillfully he was being led. During a lull in his discussion with the envoy—and how Raoul respected a man comfortable with long silences!—he overheard one such exchange.

“That is a spectacular piece of jewellery on your wrist, Mr. Hazall,” Florien sallied. “May I ask where you found it?”

“Do you not recognize the style? It’s from one of your own Tanaguran shops. I bought it just a day or two ago.”

“Surely not! Our mines were tapped out decades ago.”

“Nonetheless, it is the work of one of your very own artisans. He is becoming quite famous. And Tanagura has no need of mines. It is such a pillar of economic strength that it is a small matter to arrange for raw materials to be imported. I wore it in tribute.”

“How kind! As the cultural attaché, I am supposed to know all about our wonderful talented people and, here, you’ve educated me.” 

“You give me far too much credit. It is easy to overlook a single person.”

“No, no! I enjoy receiving this sort of lesson. I am filled with appreciation. May I inquire where you purchased the piece, so that I can sing this fellow’s praises far and wide?”

“You certainly may. I acquired it at The Treasury.”

Florien peered at him with sharp gray eyes. “The Treasury in Flare?”

“One and the same.”

“The one owned by Xavier Rex?” Florien looked back down at his salad course.

“I believe so. One of his many shops.” A bead of sweat broke out at Hazall’s hairline. He looked sharply back at the Blondie, but the handsome diplomat merely skewered a spear of asparagus.

“I shall have to ask him all about this artist-fellow,” he replied, popping it in his mouth.

Merc was just getting accustomed to the idea that Admiral Hahna—The Admiral, Commander of the Kressellian Raider Fleet—was shaking his hand when the man’s head exploded. It seemed like a full minute passed between the moment he was spattered with blood, fragmented bone and gore and the moment the Kressellian First Mate shrieked, “Hit the deck!”

Stupified, he was still shaking the dead man’s hand when he and Hilarion were bowled over by the First Mate. This is how, seconds later, they came to be sprawled on the floor behind a massive granite plinth with a headless corpse underneath them and a very pretty young woman stretched on top. She didn’t stay there long enough for this to fully register, however. Before he could suck some air back into his winded lungs or shake the image of the man’s gory death from his head, she made one quick somersault and rose to her feet, shouting commands to other Raiders and squeezing off bolts of serious fire-power.

“I’ve got to stop ending on the floor like this,” he wheezed at Hilarion, who had the grace to offer him a hand up. The muscles and scar tissue in his barely healed stomach were painfully pulled. He and the Sapphire were of no use in this situation anyway. Besides being thick and sticky with gore, they couldn’t tell the difference between friend and foe, and ended up randomly firing their pistols at anyone who aimed at them. 

This First Mate was an amazing fighter. She lined up her sights and caught two assassins with one shot just as they were leaping from the second storey banister. Then, after a shoulder roll took her out of the line of someone else’s fire, she drew her sabre with one smooth stroke and lopped off the head of another fighter who had her backup pinned behind the curving stairs.

It didn’t take long for Merc to realize that the Admiral, the dead one who had shaken their hand was a fake and that this girl—yes, this girl—was the real one. The fact that her Raiders kept addressing her as ‘Admiral’ or ‘Hahna’ had more to do with this than any swift-thinking recognition of her superior fighting skills or putting of two-and-twos together on his part. He hadn’t even gotten used to the idea that the Raiders were an equal opportunity fighting force.

He and Hilarion had just walked through the door of his spaceship when she called out to them, “Greetings! Do I have the pleasure of addressing Sir Hilarion Fyss and company?” 

At first the two men only stared, she had worn such strange clothes. Her torso was sheathed in a formal blue doublet with tails trimmed with gold and brass; long, shapely legs sucked into tight, white calfskin breeches; tall black boots; and the most outlandish hat, like an upside-down crescent moon perched on her head. She had tiny brown freckles spattered over the bridge of her nose and quite a gap between her front teeth, which Merc would’ve never noticed ordinarily except that her smile was so wide. The most astonishing thing of all was that she wore an ancient sabre. Merc doubted that she even knew how to use it.

Hilarion stepped forward.

First Mate Sam to Admiral Hahna at your service,” she gave him a smart salute, and then giggled. 

“I had no idea the Raiders followed such formalities,” he bowed slightly and frostily in return. “Naval officers? Traditional dress uniforms?”

Not at all,” she giggled again. “It’s a disguise.”

“Clearly not plainclothes.”

“Now you’re teasing me! Only the really, really important people wear plainclothes on Von. It’s the surest way to attract attention.” She leaned forward and gave him a conspiratorial wink. “I am here to meet you and conduct you safely to the Admiral. I figured the safest way was to dress up as a senior Novaterran Naval officer, seeing as they are so common.”

“Not in this sector of Glan.”

“Maybe not, but I couldn’t really disguise myself as Federation now, could I? Someone might actually have the audacity to bark an order at me. Then where would we be?” 

“In deep—” Merc broke off.

She leaned over the railing on the toes of her highheeled boots and planted a kiss on the tip of his nose, like pushing a button. Merc and Hilarion gaped. Then, with a swivel of her hips, she sauntered back up the docking platform. “Coming, gentlemen?”

For a second, the two men gaped at each other, then back at the sway and swing of her well-rounded hips.

“So that’s how they motivate Raiders to spread murder and mayhem throughout the Outworld sector!” Merc muttered.

The smuggler gave Hilarion a tiny shove, “After you.”

The Von Ambassadorial Estate Colony was one of the most beautiful places to which Merc had ever flown. It was green with a pearly white sky and fresh, humid air, so unlike the orange and pink haze of Amoi. Trees lined the streets. The sweetest scented blossoms grew everywhere and melodious bird-song dazzled his sense of hearing. The buildings were not glass towers or old dumps, but graceful structures constructed from warm-coloured materials like the moon’s red rocks.

But even more striking than the moon’s natural beauty was it’s proximity to Amoi and the other moon. The gravitational pull of the two moons left them spinning around each other, a rotation which took a full ten hours, and when the other moon passed between Von and Amoi, there was a sound like distant ocean breakers rolling into shore. It wasn’t possible for sound to travel through the vacuum of space, so this was a phenomenal occurrence that Merc had never understood.

Then there was the incredible beauty of Amoi, itself. From space, its dunes looked like the pink and peach coloured ridges of a scallop shell. Its shallow oceans reflected a bright turquoise. Cliffs of pyrite sparkled and gleamed like gold.

Merc admired this view of Amoi, as their hovercar stalled behind a line of traffic. Eventually he had to ask, “What’s the hold up?”

“An entourage of armoured vehicles,” the First Mate peered over the shoulder of her Car. “Must be—”

“Lord Am,” Hilarion said. “Lord Am is on Von. This would only happen for such an important visitor.”

“Indeed?” Her blue eyes grew more suspiciously innocent. “Well, if it doesn’t bother you, we could get out and walk the rest of the way. It’s just around the corner. Probably quicker than waiting.”

When he noticed the seal beside the front entrance of the house they were about to enter, Hilarion nocked an eyebrow. “The Novaterran Consulate?”

“Yes, well, they had it all hermetically sealed up until the next outworld expedition, didn’t they?” She huffed. “One of the first things to go when they decided to cut back on expenditures. Where do you think we picked up the spiffy uniforms?” 

“Spiffy?” Hilarion was poised to hyperventilate.

“Don’t worry so much!” She patted his arm, “we’ll put it back the way we found it. They’ll never know we were here.”

Less than five minutes later, they were locked in this gun-battle.

“Hey, Sapphire! Why didn’t you tell me you’d never met the Admiral before?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It’s gonna be kinda tough to pick up those computer components if we don’t find some way outta this mess.”

Hilarion stopped shooting and gave Merc a strange look.

“You’re right,” he said. “I need a plan.”

Then he leapt at the Admiral and tackled the woman.

“That’s your plan?” Merc wasn’t entirely convinced.

There was an explosion. Someone had tossed some sort of percussion grenade into the building. If they managed to make it out alive and intact, Merc seriously doubted the Admiral was going to leave the consulate in a condition fit for habitation. Flames sucked every trace of oxygen out of the air and replaced it with shrapnel and shards of flying glass. The screams of the dying reminded Merc of that awful day the SERT-4 mine was attacked. 

Hilarion had slung Admiral Hahna over his shoulder and was charging toward the front door.

Any amusements the Von Ministry planned that evening paled next to the guests’ indifference to what was happening on Amoi. Dozens of the most alluring, scantily clad Pets glittered with gems, reclined on piles of fat, silken cushions, ate cakes and exotic treats dipped in honey and spices, and sipped wines and other liqueurs laced with aphrodisiacs. From the moans and keening noises rising from some piles of cushions, a few of them had commenced with their after-dinner duties. Katze didn’t want to imagine what the strange contraption on a platform in the corner was used for, the one which resembled a Catharine’s-wheel.

“Relax,” Paviter leaned over and muttered, “I seriously doubt this lot is going to allow actual mutilation.” 

He shuddered. With this tier of Elite, one could never know for sure. As with Iason, boredom had become so acute, it became a game for some of them to test limits. Irritated by the accuracy with which the brat had read his fears, Katze swatted at the space next to his ear as though shooing away a fly. Nowhere in the crowd could he detect dread, trepidation or even slight reserve. Festivities carried on as though as though Jupiter’s fall meant nothing, as though the end of Amoi wasn’t imminent. It seemed unnatural. Eerie.

Something had changed for him during the interlude of freedom huddled in his clammy basement apartment. Perhaps it was the influence of Iason’s and Riki’s deaths, chipping away at his hardness. Or perhaps it was the unusual nature of his new Blondie master himself, compared to these ostentatious and decadent displays, with his Eos apartment stripped of useless lackeys and Pets.

Other Pets, Katze corrected himself, rationalizing that at least his services to Raoul weren’t entirely sexual. Had it been Iason who controlled his pet-ring—Iason before he was changed by Riki—he would’ve been forced to participate. 

The worst thing was the fawning. 

When a young man with unusually large eyes and fine skin reached over and pawed at his knee, he almost recoiled in disgust. This was something Pets did at the behest of senior Elite to curry favours, to signal their master’s desire for alliances. 

Katze was accustomed to being treated with contempt at worst, ignored at best. He preferred it to this newfound ardour, which felt at once both gluey and slimy. He struggled with the temptation to lash out and cause real pain.

Instead, since he knew the Pet’s master was closely watching his reaction, he took a tactical approach, disengaging the hand from his knee and ruffling the boy’s hair like one would pat the head of a lap-dog. It sent the message that, although he was open to new associations, he wasn’t free to look into it further at that time. Katze was relieved that his training as Furniture gave him some measure of self control. Sympathy for Iason and Raoul flashed through him, for having had to deal with this all the time. All the time.

Raoul was shaping up, he realized, not to be the sort of man who consumed pleasure in passive glut. Rather, the things which gratified him required time, effort and discipline, education and a refinement more subtle than money alone. Although Katze clearly recalled a time when Raoul had seemed obsessed with Pet-cultivation, back when he would chide Iason for his interest in Riki, he suspected the attraction had more to do with the intricate double-helixes which coiled in their cells, than the real purposes for which they were bred.

Katze still railed inwardly, silently at the arrogant disregard with which Raoul had pre-empted his freedom. He still despised his sense of entitlement and casual acceptance of privilege. He still feared the man’s awesome physical strength, grace and speed, the singularity of his focus and will, the sheer power which he could, and frequently did, dispatch against those who would thwart him. But in this one, outstanding thing, his admiration for the Blondie had grown.

By contrast, his own role in perpetuating the trade in Pets grew all that much clearer. The cold fact remained that Tanagura’s one and only commodity was its Pets, and he was every bit as guilty of it as anyone else within that room. This inner contradiction was enough, without Raoul’s words of warning, to keep him from being distracted.

Katze scanned the room for unusual activity. One Pet in particular grabbed his attention, not for the splendour of her beauty which was considerable, but for the slyness with which her eyes narrowed when she caught his. Instantly, he honed in. Sure enough, her collar marked her as Academy-trained and part of Hazall’s harem, secretly kept in Apatia in direct contravention of his own Federation’s constitution. The harem had been started with Iason’s gift of the decidedly untrained Kyrie, essentially a bribe through which the Tanaguran Syndicate had weaseled exemptions from the Federation’s strict antislavery codes. She leaned back on her cushions, spread her knees wide and lifted a shapely leg into the air like a flagpole.

With so many other more attractive and senior Elite scattered throughout the room, this attempt at seduction was almost too blatent. Katze saw it as a personal confirmation that his hunches had been correct about the Federation’s involvement in Amoi’s troubles. That was the extent of his interest in her.

Dismissing her was a mistake, as it turned out. He only just caught the warning which flickered across Paviter’s face and whirled around to find her advancing upon him. 

She reached out to stroke his hair and babbled in an itty-bitty baby-voice that set his teeth on edge, “Ooh, so much pretty-pretty!” 

He stared, appalled, as a clump of the shimmering red stuff came out in her hands.

“Watch what you’re doing!” Katze snapped, pre-empting her shrieks. Heart thumping in panic, he furiously snatched the loose strands out of her fist.

Raoul had already risen to his feet, attuned to the situation by the transmitter concealed in Katze’s pet-ring. The commotion was attracting more attention than Katze could bear. Every eye in the room was turning toward this scene. His face blazed. 

“What seems to be the problem?” Florien Von waved his Furniture aside and stepped forward.

Katze opened his mouth to speak, but found words weren’t forthcoming. Florien’s eyes focused on his fisted hand with the hairs still clutched in it. It looked self-evident, even if it wasn’t. 

Schooled as he was in Blondie inscrutability, Florien’s eyes still flickered with surprise. So much hair would’ve taken some strength and caused considerable pain if yanked straight out of the scalp. No one else besides Katze knew that the hair had somehow detached itself before the Pet laid her hands on it. Even if the Elite had higher pain tolerance, Katze came across as an accomplished stoic. 

“Has my Tsamyra caused a problem?” Hazall stepped forward. On cue, his Tsamyra dropped to her hands and knees and groveled. The Federation envoy’s eyes darted between her and the handful of hair and, like everyone else, he leapt to the wrong conclusion.

“I apologize for this shocking display,” said Hazall. The tilt to his eyebrow, however, spelled insincerity. Katze smelled opportunism. If not this precise event, something like it had been schemed. 

Katze gave a stiff little bow. He didn’t intend to look uptight for the danger of it being mistaken as having received offense, which Hazall might take it out on the girl later. Mostly, he feared that the rest of his hair would fall out at any sudden movements.

“Please, my apologies cannot mitigate my Pet’s shameful behaviour,” Hazall carried on pompously, “Won’t you allow me to make a gift of her to you, so that you may dispose of her as you will?” 

Murmurs of wonder and approval filled the air. An Academy-trained Pet, in exchange for a few strands of Elite hair, a rare human female free for him to use however he wished, even to kill, Hazall looked both magnaminous and penitent and Katze was thoroughly trapped. Refuse the gift and he would come across as a petulant child. Accept her and Hazall would plant his spy in Raoul’s company. Nor did he dare seek out Raoul’s or Florien’s eyes since their silly tiers and protocols forbade this during State functions. Everyone in the room seemed to hold their breaths. 

Finally, the right words emerged, “You are too generous, sir. I am overwhelmed, but to accept her as a personal gift would be the greatest impropriety.” 

Hazall made dismissive sounds and the room was poised to respond in kind, but Katze continued, “Therefore, if the State approves, I will accept the Federation’s amends for the State harem.” 

Hazall looked thunderstruck. This was not the conclusion he had foreseen or desired, but it was too late to backpedal and the protocol was impeccable. 

Florien Von threw his head back and let out a gust of laughter. “Well said, Sir Katze. Such a beautiful addition to our stable will be made most welcome and, by your quick thinking, a scandal has been averted. On behalf of Amoi and the Tanaguran Syndicate, we thank you, Mr. Hazall, for the Federation’s generous and humble amends. Come, let’s raise a toast to all such mishaps settled so amiably.” 

With attention effectively deflected, Katze took a sidelong peek at Raoul. The Blondie seemed to be expecting this. “Explain.” 

“My disguise is disintegrating,” he complied quietly. “I can feel my scar returning, along with—other changes. It appears that my healing and physical changes were all Psychetech illusions.” 

“There’s no point in idle speculation. We dare not expose you further. Paviter will escort you back to the spaceship. Wait for me there.” A chilling undercurrent ran through Raoul’s voice, as though this was Katze’s fault, his weakness.

Then Katze remembered. Without the pianoforte’s healing, without a false Elite identity, he was nothing more to Raoul than failed Furniture, a castrated and scarred Mongrel. As he left the Ministerial Palace in Paviter’s company, his throat and chest felt horribly constricted. 

The first moments free from the consulate were spent coughing. Even at a safe distance from the building, waves of heat scorched the threesome. 

“You’re bleeding,” Hilarion mentioned to the young woman he had hauled into the consulate garden, a garden that looked fresh, exotic and beautiful in spite of years of neglect due to the genetic enhancements of its plants, all produced in vast laboratories under Herbay. No one within sight of the building, now engulfed in flames, could’ve missed their dramatic exit. The pyre turned the twilight into midday for an entire city block in every direction. They were well-concealed, however, behind screens of trailing vines and the shadows of leaves.

“Really?” Hahna swept a cursory glance across her attire, now nearly as bloody and disheveled as theirs. “How can you tell?” 

He reached over and plucked a shard of shattered plastic and metal from her cheek. Droplets of blood continued to well within the gouge and streak down her cheek. The wound would leave a scar. Even so, she was lucky, considering how close it came to piercing her eye. “My acquaintance was protected by a pillar and my robes are bullet-proofed, so we’re fine. Can you please check to see if you have any further damages? If you’re in shock, you may not feel it.”

Her expression was rueful and sober, as she ran her hands over the stolen uniform. “Bruised and a little battered, I guess. Nothing serious. Looks like I’m dressed to be mostly puncture-proof, but there’s no way the building should’ve gone up like that, not with that sort of weapon.” 

“Booby-trapped,” Merc agreed.

“Bastards!” Her hands clenched into tight fists. “I lost some good men in there.” 

“You never expected this when you broke into the place?” Merc stuck a cigarillo between his teeth, slapped his pockets for a lighter and, coming up empty, quietly swore. “Seems to me that’s the first thing to look for when commandeering a foreign government’s property, abandoned or not.” 

“I will keep that in mind if I ever plot another secret takeover,” she grumbled.

Hilarion leaned back against the trunk of a tree and ran his fingers through his hair, “I presume that was the end of our computer interface component.”

“Why would you presume that?” she replied, reaching into Merc’s pocket and, before he could protest, extracting another cigarillo. She lit it with the lighter she carried, exchanging it for the one he hadn’t yet taken out of his mouth, lit that one and proceded to drag on it. 

“That tastes better,” she exhaled slowly. “Thanks for saving my life.” 

“Well, that's mutual, but don’t thank me yet,” Hilarion replied. “We have about three minutes before Federation security forces swarm all over us.” 

“I thought the Von moon was Syndicate,” her eyes narrowed. “That’s the only reason I agreed to meet you.”

“Don’t be disingenuous. Technically, the Syndicate and the Federation are still allies. I need to figure out how to get us away from here, looking the way we do, without attracting attention.” 

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” she said. “Remember our limo? Stuck in the traffic jam caused by your leader’s motorcade?” 

“What about it?” 

“Take a look,” she motioned at the garage. “It’s just pulling in now.” 

“That’s better,” Paviter gave Katze a critical once-over after he finished showering, combing and picking away the long, shedding hairs. “You don’t look like a moulting scarlet bird anymore. It hasn’t exactly left you bald. I guess you haven’t lost anything that didn’t belong to you in the first place, hey?” 

Katze whirled on him, choked.

“What do you know? For the second time round, I’ve lost—” he inhaled deeply, “I’ve lost something which never should’ve been taken in the first place. And if you think just because it’s the second time, it’s any easier, you’ve got a thing or two coming.” 

It took awhile before realization dawned across Paviter’s face. “Aw, shit! I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean … I wasn’t thinking. I guess that’s the price we chose to pay for leaving Ceres, hunh?” 

Katze had to concentrate not to hit him. “You had a choice?” 

Paviter thought about it a moment. “No, I guess not. Serve the Blondies, or wind up crushed into an early grave, not really a choice, is it? Damn!—And top of that, Lord Mink sure laid his track across your face, didn’t he? You sure were pretty while it lasted, prettier than the Blondies, even ... most of them. And that’s saying some—” 

“Do you have anything I can wear?” Katze cut him off. “There doesn’t seem any point to prancing around in these fancy—” he lifted the hem of his robe as though about to drop into a curtsey “—frocks anymore.” 

Paviter’s spare pilot uniform hung loose around Katze’s torso, arms and buttocks, but he felt more at ease in it than the formal Elite costume, no matter how smoothly or voluptuously the fine cloths had slid across his skin. With mirrored glasses over his eyes, he no longer feared being recognized by the wrong people. 

He was surprised to find Paviter absorbed in some activity going on beyond the windows of their craft.

“Do those three look familiar to you?” The Car asked him. 

Three bloodied ghouls toed their way across the scaffolds and catwalks which laced together the decks at the Von Interplanetary Port of Entry. He watched as they dodged haloes around walkway lamps and melted into shadows, plentiful as the twin moons spun through the night cycle of Amoi. The sky glittered with stars. 

“Merc ... and ...” he couldn’t believe his eyes. 

“Raoul’s friend, the antique dealer.” 

“Hilarion Fyss.” 

“Nothing conspicuous about the way they’re sauntering around, is there?” Paviter craned his neck to catch sight of them slipping around another craft. “Considering what they’ve been through, you’d think an Elite Kalga would at least spring for laundry service.” 

“Idiot!” The ex-Furniture reached over and smacked his shoulder. “That’s fresh kill.”

“Yeah, I know, and it’s pissing me off how you take everything I say so literally. Why is that?” 

“Gee, I dunno. Maybe it’s because the next time you yell something like “Watch out, he’s gonna shoot!” I don’t want to have to process whether you’re just jacking off or not.” 

“Touché!” he sulked for a minute before asking, “Reckon they need our help?” 

“I have no idea. Who’s the third?—The Novaterran.” 

Paviter shrugged.

"Best hold back then, but keep an eye on them.” 

A strange faraway look came over the Car’s face, which took awhile before Katze recognized as a message coming in over his wire. It seemed that Raoul had taken an interest. 

“The Novaterran Consulate came under attack tonight. It was blown up a short while ago. What do you suppose the odds are our friends were involved?” Paviter relayed to Katze and, in turn, described the strange sight they had just witnessed to Raoul. There was a brief consultation, mostly objections voiced over the agents Florien assigned to Raoul’s safe conduct back to the Spaceport. Paviter was never satisfied unless he was the one to guard Raoul’s back.

“It looks like somebody’s still trying really, really hard to kill off your boys,” the Car said after Raoul signed off. He took out a set of freshly charged pistols. “There’s a good chance they were tailed here. I’m to cover them. Discreetly, if I can.” 

“Right,” Katze said, reaching for one of the guns. 

Paviter caught his wrist. “Not you.” 

One look at his face said that there would be no persuasion. 

“Raoul?” Katze called. 

“You aren’t a soldier,” the Pet-Ring crackled to life. 

“Iason had me tracking Bison.” 

“Cut-throats from the ghetto, not trained assassins.” 

“I directed the black market—” 

“From the shadows, Katze.” 

Katze rolled his eyes. “Yeah? Well, speaking of shadows, Merc’s memory was damaged, remember? And there’s a good chance he won’t recognize Paviter. And if he thinks Paviter’s another enemy, there’s no way he won’t shoot to kill him. Same goes for your friend, Hilarion: do you honestly think if he catches your Car tailing him, he will remember who he really is? Whereas I can pretty much guarantee they will remember me.” 

There was a moment of quiet. The strange look crossed Paviter’s face again. He grunted an affirmative, then handed over the set of pistols to Katze. The cupboard was unlocked and another set removed for his use. 

“Let’s go,” Paviter’s face was set in hard, grim lines. 

It never occurred to Katze to wonder why Raoul was so anxious to keep him safe. 

The black cube was small enough to grasp in one hand, but when Hahna set it on the floor and squeezed it between her fingers, it triggered a release mechanism which caused it to expand as though unfolding in all directions. Only when it came close to filling most of the cabin did the box stop growing, defined not by anything so solid as material walls, but by an impenetrable darkness. The blackness made Merc think of the horizon of the ocean on nights when the sky was completely clouded over. It seemed to absorb light. He hadn’t experienced darkness so intense since the misadventure that once took him to the planet of Tenebrios. 

The box thrummed for a few moments and a bizarre silence fell over the room, as though all the soundwaves were being vacuumed into the box. There were other effects as well, a strange hypnotic sucking feeling at the air around the body as though coaxing it to leap into the blackness. 

“Damn, it’s like the thing’s trying to eat me alive,” he said to no one in particular. And no one heard him. He could scarcely pick up the sound of his own voice. The box had effectively rendered him mute. Panicked, his eyes shot over to his companions and he found it somewhat gratifying to catch the same disconcerted expression mirrored in Hilarion’s face. The Admiral simply looked smug. 

After letting them experience these unnerving sensations for a little while longer, she reached over, set the palm of her right hand against the boundary of one of the black sides, as though it was solid, and gave it a little push. It started to fold in upon itself in a polar reflection of its expansion process, until it returned to a state of solidity small enough to be carried in one hand. 

“Wasn’t that pleasant? If either one of you had tried to jump in while that thing was open,” she explained, holding the device up for closer inspection, “it would have repelled you like an electrical field.”

The effects of the sound distortion still reverberated through the cabin. Her voice sounded like it came from deep inside a water pipe. “How does it work?” Hilarion asked. 

“You need to connect it to the pianoforte, somehow. Exactly how, I have no idea. I suspect that it’s just a matter of setting the box on top of the stool and pressing the release mechanism and they merge.” 

“I see, and then what?” 

“Can’t remember,” she shrugged. “At one time I knew, but I had a run-in with a priestess—I remember that much. After that, most of my brains went bye-bye.” 

The two men gaped. 

“What can I say, they’re demons. Cross them and you will be lucky to make it out with your mind and soul intact, let alone your life.” 

“Shit!” was the extent of Merc’s contribution. 

“I’m one of the lucky ones, frankly,” she said. “I must’ve gotten away before she could scramble me up properly because, aside from not remembering much of anything that happened to me before I turned seventeen, I still manage well enough.”

After this extraordinary announcement, the men kept staring at her. 

She finally broke the silence with a clap and by rubbing her hands together, “So, what happens now?” 

“The usual?” Hilarion replied, “You monitor your credit account and, once the transaction clears, we take the component and go our merry way.” 

Sorry, love, not this time. For one thing, Amoian credits are worthless. Nothing backing them.”

Hilarion didn’t even blink, “Federation credits then? Or would you prefer Novaterran?” 

“Novaterran?” She looked impressed. “Gosh, if I was really smart, I could use this opportunity to bankrupt you. The salvation of an entire planet for your fortune? Anybody else would consider that a bargain. No matter how long we’ve been enjoying this sweet little trading partnership—how long has it been? Half a dozen years at least, wouldn’t you say?—don’t you dare tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing in my place, you Syndicate wolf.”

He conceded this fact with a small bow and Merc had to grudgingly admit that he managed to make it graceful under the circumstances. 

“Sadly, it won’t work. Not even your considerable fortune—and, yes, I have a pretty good idea what it is, Fyss, you sly little Sapphire, amassing all those offworld credits right under the nose of nasty Mommy Jupiter—not even that is worth what I’m going to have to do.” 

“Kindly get to the point.” There were limits to Hilarion’s patience. 

She tossed him the box. He was so surprised he almost let it bounce off him to the floor. His Elite reflexes didn’t kick in until the last instant when his hand whipped out so fast, it looked like a blur. 

“Go ahead,” she said. “Take it!”

For the second time in five minutes, she managed to render them speechless. Hilarion’s eyes softened. “Thank you.”

He and Merc began to leave. 

“Hang on, gentlemen,” she suddenly developed an unnatural interest in her fingernails. 

They turned. 

“Aren’t you going to try it out? See if it still works?” 

Hilarion frowned. He turned his attention back to the cube, trying to open it. Faster and faster, he turned it in every direction between his hands, pressing each side between his fingers, to no avail. Merc started to hop between his feet at this ineffectuality, anxious to give the cube a try. The smuggler had no more success when it was handed over. 

“So, what’s the secret?” The Sapphire asked with a snort. 

“Me.” Admiral Hahna replied. 

“You, because you are—what? A woman? Tenebrian technology requires someone of the female gender to work properly?” 

“No, but good guessing! Me, because I’m me.” 

“Why would that—? That makes no sense. Did you imprint it with an access code? Can’t open it without the right secret handshake?” 

“No, nothing like that, but you’re just full of good guessings, Mr. Suspicious. Just me, and just because I’m me. I’ve had other people try. None of my crew could. After they came up blank, I tried it out with others, you know, the usual … hostages, bad dates, bartenders on obscure satellite colonies, portaloo manufacturers … nothing. Now, why is that, do you suppose?”

“I have no idea,” Hilarion was returning to the end of his patience again, “but it sounds like you do.”

“Oh, now you’re being lazy! Where’s that vaunted Elite intellect? Fortunately for you, I have a few good guessings of my own. A woman with no memories of her past seems to be the only one in the Outworld system, apart from the Priestesses, who knows how to open up one of the most powerful Tenebrian weapons that exists. Come on! Do I have to really spell it out for you?” 

Hilarion raised his gun, “Priestess.” 

“Hey!” She lifted her hands. “Shoot an unarmed woman, would you? Damned brute! I already told you I have no memories.” 

“Why should I show you mercy?” 

“Because it looks I’m probably the only one in the entire galaxy willing and able to help save your sorry ass. Not that you’re making it sound like a particularly good idea.” 

“So you say.” 

“Yeah, so I say. You got a better plan?” 

Hilarion lowered his gun. 

“Smart boy.” 

“So what is it you really want then?” 

“Dear me, yes, let’s cut to the chase. I’ve been given to understand that the Syndicate has some interesting mind-altering technology of its own. Am I right?” 

“You may be,” Hilarion nodded.

“I had better be, because what I want is my memories back. All of them. No matter how awful. I want to know exactly what happened to me and why. I want to know who did this to me, names, faces, times, places, and --- most of all --- I want payback. Think you can manage?” 

“I can’t,” the Sapphire replied. “I’m not a biotechnician.” 

Her face fell. 

“But I know someone who is.” 

Just as quickly, her face brightened. 

“As a matter of fact, he’s right here.”

“Here?” She swiveled as though expecting someone to step out of the shadows. 

“On Von,” he corrected himself. “It just so happens—” 

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of an explosion, loud and close enough to cause the spaceship to rock within its stabilizers. A flare of orange against the night sky indicated the location of the blast in one of the first-class docking berths. 

“Again!” Merc cried. “What the hell?” 

“They’re still tracking us?”

“Not us. Not this time,” The Admiral rallied. “Dare we risk taking a closer look?”

“Look, there’s someone running toward it.” 

They squinted at a tall man in a pilot’s uniform tearing across the catwalk. Before he climbed up the scaffolds to the next level, he turned and cast a look in the glance toward their spaceship. In that instant, just for a second, his unmistakable silhouette jutted out clear against the flames. 

Merc and Hilarion gave a simultaneous shout of recognition. “Katze!” 

Within seconds, their business with the Admiral was forgotten. Guns were pulled out and they chased after their friend to lend him assistance. 

Even above the roaring flames, they could hear Katze screaming a name at the top of his lungs that sent chills down their spines. “Raoul! Goddammit, Raoul!” 

“No, it can’t be!” Hilarion had frozen. Merc stopped in his tracks long enough to see horror transfigure the Sapphire’s face. He reached over and yanked on his wrist, propelling the bigger man after him. They continued to run toward Katze and the flames, halting only long enough to clamber up scaffolds. 

Although the docking area had appeared empty before the explosion, as they drew nearer to the first-class levels, they came across groups of people gathering to watch the fire. It was getting difficult to maneuver around some of these clusters of gawking strangers, most of whom must’ve poured out of the neighbouring spacecraft and starships. 

They did not often come across people moving away from the fire, even if, of the two directions, it was probably the smartest, burning fuel being an unstable, volatile thing. Who could say if or when another ship would explode set off by the intensity of heat? Nevertheless, as Hilarion got to the top of the scaffold, he met with someone who was most anxious to make his way down. 

“Hold on a second,” he informed the man. “My friend has almost finished climbing up.”

Then he reached over and gave Merc a hand. As Merc’s feet hit the docking level floor, he came face to face with the other man. 

“You!” He cried. Hilarion turned, bemused, to see shock, then hatred flare across Merc’s face. 

“Have we met?” The strange man asked, a trace of superciliousness tainting his voice. 

In answer, Merc lifted his gun and blasted a hole through the man’s chest. “SERT-4 ring any bells, bastard?” 

Surprise, then understanding flickered across the man’s face just before his pupils dilated and he toppled over onto the lower deck. There he lay unmoving.

“What have you done?” Hilarion grabbed his arm. “What were you thinking?”

“Holy freaking mother of the entire cosmos, Merc!” A familiar voice called from below. “You’ve just killed the Federation envoy.” 

The two men peered over the railing. Admiral Hahna’s sweet face stared up at them from the darkness, filled with distress. She was kneeling by the head of the dead man and gently lifted his head into her arms, into the light where they could see it. “You’ve just killed Hazall.” <

Murmurs rippled through the crowd which now drew in a wide circle around Merc and Hilarion. The scarred smuggler glared back defiantly, but he dropped his gun. 

“You know what they’re thinking, don’t you?” Hilarion hissed at him. “They think you’re the one who blew up the First Blondie’s ship. We’re all going to be implicated in this.” 

Merc shot him a look of disbelief, “Why the hell would they think that?” 

“Idiot!” Hilarion looked ready to hit him. “Ever hear the expression ‘smoking gun’?” 

“The man slaughtered an entire mining colony and left me there to die.” 

“Do you have any proof, Mongrel?” 

“I wasn’t thinking. I just saw his complacent face and reacted. Tell me you would’ve done it differently, you great spoiled Elite snob!” 

Hilarion tangled his fingers in his hair and closed his eyes. 

Merc swallowed hard. “I got it. We’re in deep shit.” 

Another murmur wove through the crowd. It parted at the far end of the dock to let some newcomers through. Merc swung his head back to take what he was sure was a last long look at the stars. Doubtless, Onyx security personnel were already upon them, ready to make arrests. He tried to find some regret for having shot his foe in cold blood, but felt nothing except a curious sense of relief.


	10. Tumbling Back to Amoi

Hilarion thought quickly. Nothing could be done to spare Merc from imminent arrest and whoever had the power to carve a path through this crowd was almost upon them now. Many of the onlookers who had poured out of the many luxury Elite craft docked in the Von Colony Imperial Spaceport firstly to gape at the fire, had drawn around them in a circle after the Federation envoy was shot. It was a stupid thing to gather around a man holding a live weapon, a man who had just shot another person, but when the Sapphire looked around, he could see that they simply had no other place to go; it was that crowded. He supposed it was because most of them were Jupiter’s Elite, altered and trained not to react emotionally, that they hadn’t panicked and caused a stampede. The Sapphire’s breath felt laboured and tight in the thick of them, although it could just be the smoke and dry heat which sucked all the vitality out of the air. So while every eye was focused on the smuggler, he abandoned him. He elbowed his way through, slipped back down the ladder and drew Hahna out of the other spotlight of Hazall’s corpse.

The Admiral’s protests were cut off with a wave of slender fingers and, as he briskly marched her away, he muttered. “Hazall’s dead and Merc will soon be arrested and brought in for interrogation, _if_ he makes it to interrogation.”

The odds of a suspicious accident happening while Merc was in custody were higher than most. The unfairness of it choked him. One of the worst-kept secrets in the senior tiers of Elite was that the neatly stitched murder of Hazall and disposal of his assassin, subject to no further questioning or investigation, would benefit his many enemies, vast quantities of whom numbered amongst the Elite and lesser citizens, Amoian and Federal alike. Hilarion suddenly noticed sharp pains in his palms and discovered that his fingernails had bitten through skin.

“We cannot just leave him.” Hahna vibrated with distress.

Her reaction baffled the Sapphire. She scarcely knew them. How was it possible for that obnoxious, leathery smuggler to have won so much of her concern in so short a time? He was just a Mongrel, a business acquaintance; nobody in Tanagura would twitch so much as an eyelid if he died, whereas the Kressellians were infamous for ruthlessness. Their raids featured lightning-quick surprise strikes and bloody battles with no survivors; this presumed a certain sangfroid laissez-allez toward death on the part of its marshals. How could such an emotional person be a leader of men?—Especially _such_ men?

It was just as well that Amoi and its colonies were so removed from the rest of the Glan system. Offworlders simply did not understand how things worked on their planet.

“I realize that this is difficult, but the one thing I cannot fail is to deliver you and the Pianoforte interface to the Leader of the Tanaguran Syndicate. Only after that is accomplished can I provide Merc with assistance. Do you understand?”

As he led her toward the glow of the burning Imperial Syndicate Ship, Hilarion could sense the strength and flexibility rippling beneath her supple arm, the martial skills revealed in the carriage of weight distributed through her body. Combat wasn’t his specialty, but he’d had some experience during his training at the Elite Academy where it was, both, a required study and skill to maintain his position in the student ranks, one in which he fared poorly. Plus he’d seen her in action. Had he been a Mongrel, she could probably overcome him with ease and, even as an Elite, he would be hard-pressed. The key to keeping that notorious Kressellian brutality at bay lay in winning her sympathy and cooperation. 

“Our world depends upon it.”

He should’ve kept his mouth shut.

“He’s your friend!”

“No. He merely offered the use of his spaceship for this mission. I accepted. Apart from that, we share nothing.” 

Hilarion suddenly remembered their room at Kalga 19, and Raoul’s command that they work together. He decided it was too late, too futile to explain. He hadn’t really wanted to leave the smuggler’s side. He just didn’t dare risk being separated from the Admiral. He didn’t dare risk that the local constabulary would detain them, or keep them from fulfilling their mission. Too much depended upon her and her tiny black cube.

He pursed his lips in stubborn resolve as they clattered past berth after berth of luxury spacecraft. The port seemed unusually full. Packed. Overflowing with ships, in fact.

Hahna was unimpressed. “You haven’t met my terms yet, Sapphire.”

“I was just about to get to those. As I mentioned before, I cannot comply because I have no training as a biotechnician. I can’t even tell you if Tanagura Kalga has the ability or technology to manage it.”

She came to a dead-stop, yanking her elbow out of his fingers, fixing him with a glare.

“But I know someone who does, although I suspect it was his transport that was targeted in the explosion we just witnessed.”

“Is he even alive then?”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Fyss, you shady bastard, if this is a trap, so help me!”

Hilarion sighed as he gestured for her to follow him. So help her? He and Merc were the ones who could use some help, not to mention their planet, little as it deserved salvation. He wondered if it wouldn’t be better just to remain on the Von Colony and let Amoi whimper off to its sorry end. A lot of other Elite seemed to have had the same idea, he considered, understanding for the first time why the spaceport was packed to the scalp.

The sight that met him when they arrived at the burning ship left him hopeless. The First Blondie’s Car, Paviter, held a wildly struggling Katze pinned to the dock. It appeared that the ex-Furniture would’ve leapt straight into the flames. He shouted Raoul’s name over and over with so much emotion that Hilarion found himself shivering with disgust bred from the Elite Academy where such unrestrained devotion was held to be appropriate only in Pets. Small wonder the people to whom Katze belonged were called Mongrels. Yet he was also gripped by the sight. The illicit nature of all that untethered emotion made it seductive. Had there been a time when he enjoyed that sort of energy release? It seemed as though his body held the memory of it.

Yet Katze seemed to have gone mad with grief. To Hilarion, it appeared he had collapsed this explosion with the one that happened several years before at the abandoned Dana Bahn mining complex. He babbled about Hilarion’s friend, Iason Mink, as though the assassination of the late Leader of the Tanaguran Syndicate was somehow connected to Raoul’s death, or possibly even to the Dana Bahn explosion itself. He kept crying out about someone named Riki and how Iason’s death would be in vain. Iason! Didn’t he mean Raoul? Or had he collapsed the two Blondies together as well? Even though it seemed natural to the Sapphire that someone from Ceres should worship Elite at the level of the Blondies, it was a shameful and embarrassing display nonetheless, not to mention bewildering. What purpose would it serve Raoul or anyone else if Katze died? Hilarion had no further time to dwell on it though; once he listened past Katze’s outburst, he caught the Car’s attempts to bring him back to reason.

“You’re not listening, Katze. There’s no proof Raoul was in that ship when it exploded. We can’t assume he’s dead. Even if he is, there wouldn’t be a thing you could do for him now. You must pull yourself together.”

Hilarion stepped forward, with Hahna in tow. Paviter and Katze stopped emoting, stopped fighting, and watched the newcomers in silence.

“Are you saying that Lord Am was not on the ship when it exploded?” Hilarion asked Paviter.

Paviter’s face twisted with uncertainty. He gave a helpless shrug. “I said we don’t know. He wasn’t when we left it.”

“If he’s still alive, then why hasn’t he let us know?” Katze’s voice was hoarse. Apart from the scar, his face was streaked with carbon from the smoke, tears, and what appeared to be traces of makeup. His body was limp with fatigue, Hilarion assumed, from the struggle with Paviter and the recent days of stress alike, enough to take its toll on the most hardened man. “Why hasn’t he responded to our calls?”

“He may not be able to, Katze,” the Car replied gently. “He might be in the company of people he doesn’t want to eavesdrop. He might be in the midst of something critical.”

“You’re talking about the Leader of the Tanaguran Syndicate?” Hahna abruptly broke into the conversation. The stubborn set to her jaw warned them into silence.

“The biotechnician whom I mentioned,” Hilarion finally replied with a small bow. Sparks erupted from the craft behind him, like a cloud of red-gold fireflies sailing into the heavens. Against his blue hair, they reflected a neon shade of violet, unearthly and primeval, like clouds in a sunset. When his face was cloaked in shadow, none of his scars could be seen, only the sculptural planes, handsome and symmetrical.

Her eyes narrowed. “Lord Am is a biotechnician?”

“The best in Amoi,” Paviter said.

“And the only one with the authority to grant or deny your terms,” Hilarion added.

“What does Novaterra want with Amoi?” Katze asked belligerently.

The Admiral ignored him. Her blue eyes were hard upon the Sapphire. “This would’ve been quite an advantage to you, delivering me straight into his hands.”

“He is the man you sought anyway.”

“So why you couldn’t tell me this before?”

Hilarion’s face was as inscrutable as only the Elite could be. “You might’ve refused ... .”

She tensed.

“—Even if it was not in your advantage to do so.”

“Says a man who, mere minutes ago, walked away from a comrade in danger of capture... .”

So this was about mistrust. Hilarion had lost her confidence the moment he turned from Merc. 

Katze and Paviter’s heads, which had swiveled between Hilarion and Hahna during this exchange, now turned to face the Sapphire, their disturbance and disbelief over this news clearly marked.

“—Or worse.”

Paviter lifted off of Katze and helped the calmed man rise to his feet. He brushed the dirt and debris off the old uniform Katze wore and pulled his sunglasses down with the whispered suggestion, “You might want to wear these in case someone who shouldn’t recognizes you.” 

Hilarion wondered briefly who the Car could possibly mean since there couldn’t be a more positive form of identification than the huge scar running down the ex-Furniture’s cheek.

“Where’s Merc?” Katze immediately demanded of him.

Hilarion surveyed him coolly. Had he forgotten to whom he spoke?

“What have you done to my friend?”

“Nothing.” A familiar voice broke through their squabble. They started, surprised, then looked over. The smuggler peered at them from behind another Blondie who Katze and Paviter immediately recognized as Florien Von. 

“I’m perfectly fine.” He shot a poisonous glare at Hilarion. “No thanks to you!”

No one was paying attention. Everyone’s eyes were on the Blondie who stood at the front of this group.

“Raoul!” Katze murmured, his face white with relief. 

This public affront earned him a blow from Paviter. Although the Car had the decency to look ashamed and apologetic while striking Katze, he also felt compelled to add, “Watch your tongue, Mongrel!”

Again, Raoul dreamt. Again, he was lucid, aware of his subconscious mind as it unfolded before him, although not so much of all its symbolic meanings and permutations.

In his dream, he floated far above Amoi turning slow, lazy circles in space, with just the faintest tug of gravity to propel his motion, without the walls of a space ship to surround and protect him.

Like the planet’s gravity, the song, the silvery female chorale which had always led him to every place of purpose in his past dreams, was also so faint that it was almost undetectable. 

The susurration of ocean breakers was not. This was quite a mystery for Raoul who couldn’t understand how he could hear them so clearly in space when the oceans were confined to the planet’s surface, well below even their thin atmosphere. 

Then he remembered the phenomenon of the twin moons spinning around each other as they circumnavigated the planet, how that sound appeared in the atmosphere of the Von moon at certain peak intervals during their conjunction.

 _Haven’t you noticed that the tidal patterns are changing?_ Iason had told him during his last dream. _One moon is receding. It’s pulling the old waters with it back into space. The other is coming into its ephemeris and, under its gravity, the shape of the world is changing forever. We ride on its first wave._

There was also a message about his formal clothing, the costumes he wore like uniforms to proclaim his status, how he had to discard them in order to ride those waves himself. This obviously meant more than mere physical clothing. Raoul had taken it to mean all the ritualized behaviour, patterns of thought, belief, and conduct, the habitual reactions he had amassed during his privileged life. He had felt fairly confident that his recent decisions reflected his success. 

Clearly it wasn’t enough if the warning had crept back in the form of omens.

Was Iason’s message a warning to clear off Amoi altogether? To remain on the Von Moon with the other Elite as the world spun to its destruction?

Somehow, Raoul doubted it. It didn’t seem to be, although this was only a hunch. If that was dream-Iason’s intended meaning, then he was fully prepared to dismiss it, even if the consequences resulted in his own demise. The costs were too great.

He also wondered when it was that the sight of those Elite flying to their ultimate gated community on Von far above the dolor of Amoi had started to disgust him. For what had Eos been but another gated community from which all the unwashed humanity was carefully scoured? 

It was in that moment, while all the stars and planets reeled and roiled within his mind along its night journey, the Von colony moon orbited into view on the distant horizon of Amoi, a white ghost, insubstantial and wan. Someone stood upon it.

Admiral Hahna.

In his eyes, she appeared her normal size which, although substantially smaller than him in real life, would’ve rendered her a colossus within this cosmic scale, to use an entire asteroid as a footstool. There was something oddly sanctified and mythic about her, her white skin, her eyes raised away from Amoi toward the deep black of space, the way she stood so straight and still, in utter tranquility, her hands clasped in front of her as though in prayer, like ancient icons of the Madonna. As he drew closer, Raoul saw that her hands, in fact, were bound and a white cloth covered her mouth, effectively silencing her. The expression in her upraised eyes wasn’t piety, but exasperation. She appeared to plead for release.

Compliant, Raoul reached over and pulled off her gag. 

In that instant, she lost all the humanity in her eyes. A fearsome cacophony poured from her open mouth, the sound of millions of voices speaking at the same time, all coherence lost in the towering Babel of sound. Her lips continued to part, the opening growing larger and wider until she was lost and all that remained was a gaping maw in which strange Hieronymous Bosch-like ruins stood in blackened silhouette against a backdrop of flames. He recoiled in shock and fear.

The Priestesses! She was one of them, had admitted her own suspicions of it freely while they prepared to leave the Von Colony, begged him to restore her memories so she could know for sure. More than just a priestess, Raoul realized, she was their Trojan horse. Their typhoid Mary. Unwitting or not, she poured out their nightmare creations upon Amoi, turning it into an inferno, a hellworld.

 _Fool!_ A million voices merged into one deafening, synchronized roar. _This is your hellworld, your very own nightmare. It was created from your own will. Blind man! Machine man! Don’t blame us for your imperfections._

Raoul looked down at his body to discover it had changed. Without his knowledge and against his will, he had been transformed into one of Jupiter’s very own Apheliotrophs, a Deus ex Machina. He could feel the nanites advance upon his brain, feel them steadily consume all extraneous flesh, steadily remove the control of his body from his will. Yet they left his consciousness simultaneously aware, forever trapped and held by the machine, unable to change anything, but aware of constant excruciation where nerve endings and cells were spliced with cold, hard metal.

Was this a dream? Or was he actually waking up to an unspeakable reality he and Amoi shared with those who once populated the lost moon of Thallë? Had they been caught in the same fate-webs? These were the last thoughts he had before millions of random voices whispered, murmured, shouted, hissed, and howled, and intoned altogether all at once trillions upon trillions of disconnected thoughts, until he started to sink into madness under their weight, their density, their constriction.

With a shout of agony, he awoke.

It was the most amazing stroke of good fortune that the Blondie shouted when he did.

If he hadn’t, Admiral Hahna wouldn’t have started in shock. This meant she wouldn’t have accidentally tugged so sharply on the steering column causing it to veer off their flight path. This meant they would’ve been in the trajectory for a direct hit when the Tenebrian Wasp fired its cannons at them, and that would’ve destroyed them instantly. 

It took less than a second for the young woman to adjust to the adrenaline-induced blare of her heightened senses, past the thumping of her own heart and the increased flow of blood roaring through the arteries near her ears. She rolled the Corvette over to the side as the blasts from the enemy ship swept black space in striations of blinding yellow, then spun it stern to bow to return fire with lightning speed.

“What the fuck is going on?” She heard the Blondie’s giant guard … chauffeur … gorilla shout from his seat at the co-pilot’s controls.

“Didn’t you hear the news? There are people out to kill us!” Hahna answered with a laugh. “Look sharp to starboard.”

“Holy Jupiter! They must’ve sent an entire squadron after us,” Paviter finally pulled himself together enough to squeeze off a few bolts from his own gun, before the ship’s pilot skittered out of the path of another onslaught, flinging his head around as though they were riding the wildest roller-coaster in the galaxy. 

“No, there’s only five or six.” She hit one with a penetrating charge, and punched the air as the Wasp’s thorax section imploded, crumpling its frontal controls and abdominal weapons section into each other. 

“Make that five. They underestimated me!”

For all her bravado, the Admiral had a difficult time dodging the other craft. She spun and somersaulted the craft to and fro, up and down with alacrity and skill, managing to avoid the worst fire, but there was no denying it was like a proverbial turkey-shoot. Energy percussed around them, emitted waves and flaring lights in a steady onslaught. They were badly shaken.

One advantage in their favour was that the enemy swarm formation was in its gravest danger from friendly fire as they attempted to hem in the Corvette, to trap it between their cannons. Still, she grit her teeth, kept the grin on her face—even if it was a decidedly sanguinary grin—and the eerie, scary light in her eyes.

By holding off by a breath on a sudden veer, Hahna managed to knock off two enemy ships that intended to broadside her and ended up catching each other in the crossfire. This brought the total count of enemy vessels down to three.

So it continued for another twenty minutes, as the Admiral maneuvered her ship like an acrobat. They cartwheeled, spiraled, and danced through space, around satellites and massive chunks of derelict space garbage, as the planet’s gravitational pull tugged on them more powerfully or dissipated like cobwebs trying to cling to an eagle. 

Paviter was awestruck by her reflexes and intuition, so quick, so sure. Yet he hadn’t been able to line up a shot once and felt frustration and nervousness grow as their enemies’ volleys continued to round on them, as they continually broke and re-set their formation. It was only a matter of time before she grew tired or miscalculated, before the intensity of her concentration was distracted, before they grew lucky, or the— 

Paviter blinked. He managed to hit one. That was unexpected. There was no sound to indicate a hit. Just the sight of ship crumpling in on itself in the vacuum of space.

The Car straightened his spine and started firing off some more random bolts. Even if the fight was still two to one, he was starting to like how these odds were shaping up. Maybe he would get lucky again.

“Don’t get smug ... fuck us ... the blow up!” The Admiral shouted incoherently between grunts of effort and expelled gasps of air.

“What?” Paviter gaped at her, confused.

They twisted backwards, then dropped beneath one of the Tenebrian Wasps’ bowsprit cannon just before it fired.

He caught a glimpse of Raoul seated at the commlink, then stared at him in surprise as Tanagura’s leader calmly transmitted distress calls. 

For an instant, he wondered at how Raoul managed to negotiate his way there from his own Soma chamber as the ship spun, heaved and dipped so unpredictably. He snapped back to his senses with the recollection that he had no time to wonder about such things.

That was when they were hit.

_Those days are over._

Katze shook off his escort four miles from the Imperial Spaceport and followed the trail back.

“Berth 16NG2xx-3dxxx, got it?” Merc had muttered in his ear—his other ear, the one without the pet ring on it, thank some-deity-who-wasn’t-Jupiter!

“What?” Katze’s head bobbed back in surprise. He felt the smuggler press something into his palm, while pretending to slap his shoulder in a consolatory fashion with the other hand, just before the Onyx security contingent stepped forward and snapped restraints over his wrists and hauled him away.

Katze had looked down and saw the passkey to Merc’s spaceship. _Shit, no!_ He couldn’t remembered all those different numbers and letters; he didn’t have that fine-tuned a memory.

_The day when I stand by quietly while someone drags a skewer across my face just because he’s bigger and stronger have passed._

Raoul had ordered him to stay behind on the Von Colony with Hilarion Fyss. 

He hadn’t ordered Fyss to stay behind, Katze noticed, seething. No, the Sapphire had volunteered, claimed it was so he could help out with Merc’s legal defense in some sort of atonement for having ditched him back at the murder scene. So he claimed. 

_Right!_ —As though Florien Von was going to let anything happen to the smuggler. Especially after Raoul had reminded him about “the great service” he had performed for them, and others that he might still perform if he continued to heal. Merc would probably end up in a house arrest situation, snugged up in one of the Elite suites at the Pinnacle Hotel, surrounded by opulence, every need fulfilled. Since releasing him would amount to an overt slap in the face to the Federation, one which might lead to war, Raoul hadn’t dared let the smuggler go completely free, but by placing him in the custody of the Amoian attaché with special instructions, he managed to do the next best thing. 

Raoul had tried fob Katze off with a reason why he didn’t want him to accompany the Blondie back to Amoi. 

“Civil unrest is escalating and the planet itself is in danger,” he had said, as though he didn’t want to risk the ex-Furniture’s life, as though Katze’s safety meant that much to him, as though the fact that Katze no longer looked like a Ruby Elite had nothing to do with it. 

_Forget that!_

He had watched Raoul walk up the gangway with Paviter and that woman Fyss scrounged up, a woman who turned out to be the leader of the Kressellian Raider fleet, pirates with whom he had both tangled and bargained from time to time during his years directing the black market in Midas. It felt like his throat was caving in. His head swam, like being wracked by a high fever. The only way he could hold up was to concentrate on the next breath, and the next breath, and the next breath. He watched them disappear through the hatch of her vessel. He watched the Corvette seal, fire up and fly away. He watched it disappear over the horizon. Then he remembered to exhale. 

After it was gone, Hilarion Fyss touched his arm to let him know their limousine was ready to depart. The Sapphire knew which way the wind blew in Amoi. He knew the place was collapsing. He knew that an Elite suite on the Von moon was infinitely safer and quieter than any place in Midas, even though there wasn’t a hope or prayer for Von if Amoi was no longer capable of supporting life, the colony depended too heavily on it. Still, if the spoilt Sapphire could spare a little time to help out Merc, or at least visit the old bastard, Katze could forgive him. No one had asked the smuggler to pull the trigger on Hazall. 

I'm Knowing that the Onyx would monitor his movements as long as he remained at the port, Katze slid into the limo behind Fyss, as he was told. He lingered as the hovercar pulled into the stream of traffic and made its way down the main urban arteries—no motorcade escort to speed things up this time. After about ten minutes in silence, stuck behind a stoplight, the Sapphire had dozed off. Katze bided his time a bit longer. They inched along for another ten minutes, and then, while the chauffeur was busy craning his head from side to side trying to look around a massive transport vehicle, Katze slipped off his seatbelt, quietly opened the window, and pulled himself out. If he was lucky, they wouldn’t notice him missing until they got to the hotel. If he was even luckier, the traffic would slow them down so they wouldn’t get to the hotel for another hour. 

As he made his through the maze of craft harboured at the Von spaceport, unable to remember the number of Merc’s pier, Katze figured his luck had run out. He didn’t have a hope in hell of finding the ship in this sea of space-yachts. He passed Rejinan Schooners, Sharffai Cruisers with their biospheric garden domes, sleek little racing Ketches from Ka’an. Then he saw something which made him laugh. 

In the midst of these luxury craft glittering with rare alloys, fancy gadgetry and high-tech enhancements, was the sorriest hunk of banged-up, pockmarked, scratched to hell piece of space-trash he had ever laid eyes on. That had to be Merc’s ship. 

It seemed that Katze’s luck was still with him. 

Serge Renaud had just received word from the Von Colony moon about the destruction of the Imperial Syndicate space vessel when Raoul’s first distress transmission came through. Tanagura was closer to the embattled space ship than the taskforce on Von, yet the brigadiers of Amoi’s fleet seemed to be caught in some sort of quandary as to the proper response, no doubt impeded by a completely illogical desire to move that one social rung closer to Jupiter. 

Serge shook his head. No matter how many Blondies died, they were never going to be anything other than brigadiers. That was the sole purpose of their manifestation as determined by Jupiter. 

He, on the other hand, had no trouble figuring it out. Since Raoul had signed over control of the Port Authority to him, he ignored them and quietly dispatched fighters under their bickering noses to sortie with the Tenebrians. This was why Raoul had promoted him up from traffic control. 

By the time the fighters engaged, at the edge of Amoi’s atmosphere, where the two remaining Wasps prepared to follow the Kressellian Corvette, the First Blondie’s commandeered ship had been hit. The Wasps chose to veer off rather than pursue now that a defense taskforce was at hand. 

From the images flashed to Serge over the viewscreen, the Corvette looked like it had sustained a serious blow to one of its wings. It entered the gravitational field too quickly and only the sharpest angle, almost perpendicular to the surface of the planet kept the craft from plunging nose-first in a free fall. Even so, the damaged stabilizer that the Tenebrians clipped on their right tailwing made the long spiral descent rough, wild and far too fast 

The brigadiers were still sorting out how to tell the Syndicate that they had failed to respond to the late First Blondie’s distress call, and what excuses they should give, when Serge left the control tower and picked his way over the tarmac. 

He didn’t even wince when the Corvette bounced twice upon landing. With his genetically enhanced spatial perception, the Platina just knew it would hold together. He didn’t bat so much as an eye as it skipped and skidded across the asphalt and the wheels ground to a stop mere inches from him. That same enhancement allowed him to calculate the exact place to stand for maximum safety and efficiency. Nor did he twitch when the tail section fell off with a hollow, echoing crash that seemed to issue from the mouth of a god. A quick perusal while back in the control tower of their intelligence with regards to the construction of Kressellian vessels sufficed to let him know there would be no explosion. 

But when the hatch flew open, and the Admiral stepped out, you could’ve knocked him over with a puff of air. 


	11. Chapter 11

Admiral Hahna was not a happy woman. Her face bordered on sour as she leaned back in the overstuffed chair. There was nothing wrong with the chair. It was just unsettling for Offworlders to see how puny ordinary humans were next to Blondies. Fully grown men felt like awkward children. Were Midas not in chaos, Raoul would’ve conducted these negotiations at Parthæa, where the architectural stagecraft was designed to put everyone at ease. 

“We are unused to entertaining business guests in our personal apartments.” He watched her eyes sweep over the smooth rock of his great hall, take in the vaulted glass ceilings, the collection of paintings, the magnificent piano—where her scrutiny froze for a moment—and the panorama of Midas stretching far below. The glittering cityscape was punctuated with random columns of smoke. “But the city is too dangerous at present.”

Hahna tried to keep her attraction to him secret. There was no psychological sign, not so much as a stammer, but other, more subtle indications were clear as an instruction manual to him, the slight rise in her pulse and body temperature, the faint blush and trace of pheromones everytime he drew near. Raoul assumed that her infatuation was of the usual sort. People found Blondies attractive; it wasn’t personal and it was such old news that Raoul was heartily bored about it. The good thing was that her infatuation probably lacked obsessive force. Still, it was yet another matter which required caution and delicacy.

Raoul knew by the lack of reaction in his body that he wasn’t interested, the flat, evenhanded, sameness that extended to almost everyone, yet was spectacularly missing everytime he thought of—Katze! Wasn’t that strange? He had been sure that the first name and face to leap to mind would’ve been Iason’s. If it was natural for him to feel any attraction toward a woman, Hahna wasn’t the one. Well, he wasn’t attracted to most other men in that way either, so the biological line of pursuit was fruitless and frustrating. 

“The trouble isn’t that we cannot restore your memories,” Raoul explained, stirring cream into his coffee, which he usually took black. The circling motion of the tiny spoon in the well of fine china had a soothing quality. “If it’s a matter of technology or know-how, that wouldn’t be a problem at all.”

“Why, then, do you refuse me?”

“The problem lies with the hive-mind telepathy which links the Priestesses of Tenebrios. The artificial intelligence which once governed Tanagura used a similar interface to communicate between artificial life-forms in Tanagura. So, while this is all theoretical as it pertains to the human mind, I would pose that it allows us to extrapolate a reasonable assessment of danger. The dangers are —considerable and you should know them before you judge us for denying you the use of our technology. There is a line where mind-alterations change into brain-damage after all, and in this case, I fear they would be permanent, with devastating effects not only on you, but on our planet. We cannot risk it.”

She swallowed, then conceded the point. “I see. Do you mind elaborating on those dangers for me? Without more information, I’m afraid I’m not convinced.”

“Fair enough. You could lose all sense of self, all sense of individuality. Your mind would merge with the hive-mind, which is to say, that your mind would be consumed by its dominant intelligence. Nothing of ‘you’ would likely remain. Your will would be entirely subducted. Basically, ‘you’ would die, except as an extension of the collective-mind. And the foreign nature of this dominant intelligence is such that any sense of ‘you’ which might make it through the experience intact, any trace of individual sensation, feeling or thought process, anything which managed to stay separate from the hive-mind, would undergo pain—excruciating pain, neverending pain—forced to comply with the alien and unsympathetic will. And there would be no escape. Your liberty would be gone, forever.” Raoul set aside his cup of coffee. “Can I offer you a glass of wine?” 

“I’m sorry?”

“I have several excellent bottles of Noir from Kaan, a small, private vineyard in their hill region with outstanding vintages.”

“Erm, sure. I’ll take a glass.”

Raoul stood and poured her a substantial portion from the decanter. In response to his cues, the Admiral reclined against the back of her chair and tucked her feet under her. Their business was in dead earnest, but they could conduct it with the lightest touch.

She took a mouthful of the Noir and savoured it. Her eyes rolled up and she sighed with pleasure, it was that good. Then she cut to the chase. 

“Hold on, hold on, hold on! You used the word “permanent” in your estimation of possible brain damage. If it was permanent, how do you explain me?”

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, even though I can’t remember, I’m pretty sure I was once a Priestess. A lot of clues point that way. So how come my will isn’t ... subsumed, was it? How come I can think, feel and act freely on my own? No lack of individuality here!”

“True,” Raoul raised his glass with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “It is safe to say, however, that your conjecture as to having attained the full status of Tenebrian Priestess is shaky at best; your clues simply aren’t solid enough to substantiate it. 

“This isn’t to say, it isn’t a good conjecture,” he forestalled her protests by continuing without pause. “You seem to be the only person capable of manipulating the interface with our shiny, new Holocaust Piano; an ordinary person might be convinced by that evidence alone. As for the missing blocks in your memories, highly suspicious indeed! We would say, however, that there are other possible explanations.”

“Such as—?”

He looked over the city, his city, the place he now ruled, filled with the urgency of how much was at stake.

“Let’s consider. Possibly, you were never integrated into the hive-mind in the first place, for example. Or, you were a novice held within the introductory tiers, but cultivated specifically for the purpose of infiltration,” he lifted a hand to prevent her from jumping in before he was finished. “Or, if you were a Priestess and ejected from the hive-mind, it was only because the dominant will desired it, again, for a special purpose such as infiltration.”

“Is this an accusation?”

Raoul’s eyes widened with surprise. This is where he lamented the loss of Iason’s charisma. His friend just knew that impersonal reasoning imparted in cold, abstracted language could come across as too harsh, too accusatory. In the process of negotiations, Iason had always known exactly how to soften the blow.

“Not at all,” Raoul finally replied as gently and humbly as he could. “The best assassin is one who doesn’t know he is about to kill.”

“I beg your pardon!”

“The proverb refers to the fable of the Manchurian Candidate, an assassin whom no one would suspect, someone with a close relationship to the intended victim, brainwashed to forget both his purpose and his target except in response to an external trigger. He is planted near the intended victim, the trigger is activated, and he reacts unwittingly. Blame falls upon his head alone. The path is left clear for the coup’s masterminds. They remain free from all suspicion of involvement, free to take over.”

“Wha—? Is this even possible? I don’t follow. How would I fit into a scenario like that?”

Raoul thought about his last dream, the impetus for his investigation into hive-mind telepathy and how it might affect those that were connected to it.

“The huge blocks of your missing memories are of particular concern to us, Admiral Hahna. Then there are your own suspicions which imply that, if you were a Priestess, you escaped their domination as a renegade, your strangely surreal memories of a battle with another Priestess. In all the long centuries that the Priestess Cult has ruled Tenebrios, there have been no recorded incidents of a priestess leaving it alive. Ever.”

“None?”

“Not one.”

She had nothing to say to this.

“And why wouldn’t you remember, if your escape was the act of someone in full possession of their faculties?—Someone in a willful state of rebellion? After all, you escaped. That is a noteworthy achievement. So, why the hazy memories?”

More silence.

“And since Amoi’s Customs and Immigration controls have been amongst the tightest in the Outworld Sector, and no treaty or embassy established with Tenebrios, there has been almost no chance of the Priestesses gaining a foothold from which to govern or monitor the present situation through legitimate channels. They tried. They failed. We denied them, according to our laws and our sense of self-preservation, which they must’ve known—known, and factored into their calculations. So they would’ve had to have created a contingency plan.”

Her face turned white with fear. She poured the last few mouthfuls left in her glass of Noir straight down her throat. “I see.”

“More wine?”

“Yes, I think I could use another—” her voice was low and subdued.

“Or would you prefer something stronger?”

“Or something stronger.”

Raoul rummaged through the liquor cabinet on the sideboard and hauled out an aged bottle of single-malt whiskey. He poured a glass for her, but refilled his wine from the decanter.

“Then there is the threat of what a Priestess becomes once her will has been usurped,” he poured, “Once your will has been usurped; once your ability to make decisions and take action has been nullified; once your personality is overtaken. Tenebrian Priestesses are not well-regarded in the Outworld sector, as you probably know. The protocol on Amoi as ruled by Jupiter was to “shoot to kill on sight.” No exceptions. Why, you ask?—Because the Tenebrian Cult has a reputation for destroying worlds.”

The silence that fell over them was palpable, choked with distress. Raoul experienced an odd sort of fluttering in his chest, like bird wings or a swirling ripple in a glass of wine. He wasn’t familiar with the sensation, but the thoughts that affected him as he watched the woman were about how young she was and how heavy this news must be to bear. So he supposed that the unfamiliar feeling was compassion. The next thought that occurred to him was how seldom he had felt it during Jupiter’s domain, and starved and pinched his existence had been without it. This broke out of him in the form of a heavy sigh. He swirled the wine in salute and lifted it to his nose.

“It looks as though you’re breaking your own laws then. Why haven’t you shot me yet?”

“Good question.” He needed to think about that one. He appreciated how she left him in peace while he sorted his thoughts, how she didn’t try to sway him or explain herself. It was another commendable quality. 

“Are you familiar at all with Tanaguran society?”

“Just rumours, I’m afraid. We don’t meet many of you in outer space. You’re kind of isolated out here.”

After a brief overview of their history and social structure, Raoul summed up, “The Elite are a completely artificial race of genetically manipulated supermen. The Tanaguran Blondies, of whom I am only one, are the epitome of that race. Jupiter had lost interest in humanity, in the fickle and unpredictable nature of human emotion. We are bred and trained not to display that aspect of our personalities.”

She had no answer for that, either.

“In spite of all of this, Miss Hahna, we are human. And, as our predecessor, Lord Iason Mink, taught us in the most tragic manner, we are subject to human feelings. Therefore it is not in our nature—or at least, not in the nature of those who are sane and whole amongst us—to shoot a person without first assessing their threat to us. In terms of my legal standing, I’ve taken some liberty with the interpretation of Jupiter’s Law, with regards to the words “on sight.” I’ve taken “on sight” to mean a positive identification. You haven’t been positively identified as a Priestess. Not yet.” 

“War, civil unrest, raids … people shoot each other blindly all the time. You can’t always wait around assessing the risks. At least one of those conditions applies to our situation, I dare say.”

“Our society is in upheaval,” Raoul conceded with a nod of his head. 

“Heck! Your man, Merc, did just that on the Von Moon.”

He tilted his chin as though to tell her she could do better than that.

“Well, maybe not blindly,” she corrected herself, “but certainly unprovoked.”

“We aren’t here to argue isolated cases. The example you brought up provides all the more reason for restraint, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I, uh … but what if you’re wrong?”

“Then we die.” Raoul shrugged. “Or you die. Inherent in such responses are a lack of obvious reasons. Sometimes a person just has to go with their feelings.”

“And your feelings tell you I’m trustworthy?” Admiral Hahna looked skeptical. “When, given how the Cult of Priestesses maintain their power, I can no longer trust my own mind?”

“Both feeling and reason tell me there is no other choice. That is slightly different.”

“Yet you deny my terms and risk my refusal to cooperate.”

“It is possible that you were once connected to the hive-mind. If that is the case, there is some risk that activating your interface with the Holocaust Piano will trigger it. It’s possible, but not certain—”

“But you’re willing to take that risk?”

“We have no choice. Our world is falling apart.” 

“Yet you will not restore my memories?”

“If you were once integrated within the Tenebrian hive-mind, then that would reactivate the connection without a doubt.”

“Even across all that empty space?”

“Even so.”

“I see,” she leaned back and ran her fingers through her tight brown curls. “What are you prepared to offer me in exchange, then, Lord Am?”

A critical moment, Raoul stirred, like the first moves of the red queen on a chessboard. “There seemed no point in putting together a counter-offer without first discussing your needs and desires.”

She pressed her index fingers to her pursed lips. “I’ve damaged my ship.”

“That will be fully restored in any case.”

“Yes, so I see, I see. Well, then … if I was a Tenebrian Priestess, that meant I would’ve been a member of the ruling class in my society. As the Admiral of the Kressellian Raiders, I have no such status. I’m an outlaw and an enemy of the Federation, with a sizeable bounty on my head!”

“Do you wish for diplomatic immunity in Amoian airspace?—For you and your Raiders? That is trickier, but it can certainly be arranged.”

“Oh, that is of little meaning or value to me,” she shook her curls and laughed. “The Feds haven’t caught me yet. It won’t be easy for them to lay their hands on me in the future either, I would wager.”

Raoul waited for her to get to the point. She stretched a long, shapely leg out in front of her, tracing ruptures in the rock from back when Raoul tried to move the Piano with the toe of her boot. The silvery fibers had almost replaced the blue within the rock by now. They shimmered with almost imperceptible flickers of light.

“I have always wondered what it would be like not to have to run around the Outworld sector, dodging Federation ships, but I never did settle down, because I never thought I could be content not to lead—even if it’s only a ragtag bunch of Corsairs.”

“I agree.” Raoul answered.

“You do?” She seemed genuinely surprised.

“I was thinking not too long ago that you show many fine leadership qualities.” He bit back his words regarding the areas where he felt she could improve.

“I’m so glad you think so! Then, it’s settled.”

“What’s settled?”

“My new terms for activating the Holocaust Piano interface, of course.”

Raoul just stopped himself, she looked so pleased with herself. She was hugging her knees, chortling with joy. Under her highly polished boots, he suspected she was wriggling her toes.

“What might they be?”

“You’ve become her regent, haven’t you, Lord Am? Jupiter’s, I mean—ruling in her stead? And everyone appears to accept your leadership without question. It’s quite remarkable.”

“Yes?” He did not like the direction this conversation had turned. He didn’t even hear the door open behind them.

“So, in exchanges for my services on the Holocaust Piano, I will become your wife and assist you in governing Amoi from Tanagura.”

“I beg your pardon?” 

“Your wife, Lord Am. The deal is you marry me and set me up as co-regent and I save your planet. It’s a small price for an entire planet, wouldn’t you agree?”

No, he did not want a wife. 

No, he felt no physical attraction toward this woman, and any admiration he did experience was not of the sort to inspire lasting devotion. 

“Do you accept?”

He shook off his surprise. 

No, he did not want anyone interfering in his role as First Blondie. 

No, he didn’t think her style of leadership would mesh well with the Elite. Quite the opposite! He could imagine her shooting off a command to Venables and—damn! Was that actually a headache? The only time he ever felt this stretched was after a session with Jupiter.

As for Katze… 

Katze!

He downed his wine, and gave her his answer. 

“I will.”

 _Crash!_ The two negotiators jumped as though caught in delicto flagrante. They looked over to the door where Tibór had backed against Serge and knocked the computerized notebook out of his hands. Both Furniture and Platina looked startled, themselves. Paviter, who was entering the room just behind them, looked absolutely flummoxed.

Tibór immediately dropped to his knees. “My apologies, Lord Am. When I heard you say, “Yes?” I assumed you had heard me knock and granted us permission to enter.”

Raoul nodded, his expression completely inscrutable. 

Serge swallowed, and then came forward with his hand extended. There was no point pretending that he hadn’t heard. “I presume congratulations are in order on your upcoming nuptials.”

They shook hands. Serge turned to the Admiral and gave her a slight bow. 

“We couldn’t have asked for a more charming and—” his voice faltered. 

Hahna couldn’t manage to meet his eyes. She looked very much like an inexperienced young woman who just realized she had behaved rashly, regretted it, but didn’t know how to back off.

“—And, well, we’ve never had a First Blondie’s wife before.” He forced himself to continue. “I’m not sure what the protocol is for addressing you. What will your title be?”

“That’s enough, Sir Renaud,” Raoul interrupted. “Admiral Hahna and I have not completed our negotiations, but this is as good a place to introduce her to the politics of Amoi as any. You had something for us?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, but—” Serge turned toward Tibór who was sweeping up the shatter notebook crystal. 

“Salient details.”

“You wish for me to—proceed?” Serge inclined his head toward the Admiral, double-checking to make sure it was alright with Raoul for him to speak freely.

“Immediately.”

Raoul listened intently as the Platina gave his report. 

Onyx officers had attempted to bring Xavier Rex in for questioning regarding his relationship with the Federation Envoy shortly after the warrant from the Von Colony had been transmitted, only to find he had disappeared. They had been simultaneously dispatched to his many residences and businesses throughout Midas and Tanagura, so he had to have received a warning prior to the transmission. His trail was still warm, but from all appearances, it looked like he had departed Amoi for good. 

The First Blondie had only narrowly missed being caught in the blast which destroyed his ship, just as he suspected, because he had remained in the motorcade to discuss strategy with Florien for a few minutes longer. The explosion was timed to go off at precisely three minutes from his arrival at the port, more than enough time for his Car to give it a cursory sweep and allow him to board his craft without that one delay. Instead, both he and Paviter had waited in the car until the conversation was through.

The detonator had been found in a vehicle that was reported stolen that morning. Infrared scans had detected no organic residue that did not belong to the owners.

“Naturally,” Raoul snorted.

Hazall, whose vehicle arrived shortly after Raoul’s, was strongly suspected of having instigated the blast. The Envoy would have had no way of knowing that the First Blondie had not yet boarded his craft. He, himself, was chatting with casual acquaintances at the time of the explosion. This alibi would’ve worked had he not been shot while making his way out of the port, which led investigators to check the security cameras. There, he was recorded making signals to someone off-screen. It was suspicious, but inconclusive.

His portable commlink was a wealth of sources. Investigators were still following through on many of the individuals that he had contacted that day. Quite a number of them had disappeared. There was also a record of communication received from a relay station whose trajectory placed it behind the second moon. This could’ve been the location from which the Tenebrian Wasps had been dispatched, although it appears that the actual spaceships had taken shelter in the debris field.

At mention of the second moon, Raoul stirred. He wondered at its significance, why Iason had spoken of it in the dream.

“We still have not verified that there is a connection between the Tenebrians and the Federation,” Serge continued, “but shortly afterward, Hazall placed a call to a number on the perimeter of Midas, to the Guardian.”

“The Guardian?” Raoul’s eyes widened.

“Yes. Do you wish to detain Manon Kuga for questioning?”

“Kuga’s tenure was terminated after Kyrie’s accident.”

“He was reinstated six months ago.”

The infinitesimal hush of stress-cracks crazing across Raoul’s wineglass pricked the silence, but his voice was as mild as could be, “And who authorized this?”

Serge swallowed nervously, “Lau.”

Raoul rose to his feet. The clone nurseries! 

His head ached from trying to sort out the connections, but there just wasn’t enough information. His heart ached from the possibility of Lau’s betrayal, but again, he didn’t know for certain. He could feel his pulse race from the dangers which his betrothal might present to Amoi, welcoming a possible Manchurian Candidate right into the heart of his home and the present seat of their government, but there was no other way to uncover the mystery. Every moment he waited, the planet seemed to teeter toward its doom.

In the centre of his hall, the Holocaust Piano loomed, the most unknown factor of all. Raoul walked over to it and sat at the bench. His hands stroked the keys and a beautiful glissando rippled through the room.

_You understand what is happening. You know what I need to do._

It seemed that the only response he was to receive this time was the colour of blue, like the sky at deepest dusk without a star to interrupt it. It was unlike space, but had the same sense as the void, an abyss. It was unfathomable.

Raoul turned to the Admiral. 

“It’s time to initiate the interface,” he said. “If we wait any longer, it will be too late.”

She nodded.


	12. The Gatekeeper

"I know you’re awake.” The douse of cold water that still trickled behind Katze’s ears had brought him back, but when he tried to move, his head pounded and waves of nausea rolled over him.

The voice was vaguely familiar, deep and bass. Slowly, with his eyes still shut, Katze tried to piece together his last memories. He remembered walking through the doorframe to Raoul’s penthouse because the door itself no longer existed. It had been blasted open and a curtain of filmy fibres was laced across the opening, the spidery fibers so closely resembling the parasitic threads which had encased the prospectors on Thallë, and Katze’s dread had exploded into full-blown terror. It didn’t stop him, however; he pushed through the webbing, past the entrance and into the hall.

There, he glimpsed darkness beyond any he had ever experienced, a blackness that seemed to absorb all light, when he was seized and held in polished metal cuffs at end of a complex system of hydraulic shafts. Katze looked up and shouted. The head, attached to a cyborg, was both human and inhuman. The head was Raoul’s.

But it was not Raoul. 

Blondies might be inscrutable, their expressions flat and calm, barely human, but still human. This one wasn’t. It was made of flesh and blood, but the sentience reflected back at him was anything but human. It was as close to dead as anything Raoul had ever seen. Katze stared dumbstruck, unable to grasp what he was seeing. Then there was a moment of searing grief and loss before he shook off the wave of panic. 

Psychetech warfare was brutal. After his recent experiences, he remembered how clever the illusions could be. The creepy thing about this particular illusion was how the possibility of it being real undermined his confidence that it wasn’t. Forearmed with the knowledge of what Jupiter had wrought in the Underworld beneath the Guardian, it wasn’t inconceivable to imagine anyone ending up as a mechanical robot partially integrated with human flesh, although the ruling Blondie would not be the first person one thought of in such a predicament. With the technology and knowledge that Jupiter had provided to the Elite of Tanagura, however, it was a possibility.

Katze remembered opening his mouth to scream, a reflexive reaction to release terror and panic, but something cold and metallic had pinched a nerve at the junction of his neck and collarbone, and he had blacked out instead. Now he lay on a smooth, flat surface, his body wracked from retching and coughing, and the voice of someone who was still human and, Katze judged from the placid tone of the voice, a Blondie, but not Raoul, trying to pierce the miasma of pain.

“You made it back to the planet. That was unexpected.” A hand, heavy and capable of snapping his bones with one squeeze rested on his thigh. Katze lifted his knee in a feeble attempt to brush it off. It simply slid further up his thigh.

Yes, he had made it back to Tanagura. Barely. Impact with Amoi’s atmosphere had been like ploughing through a swamp. In the past, he’d had his share of flights beyond Amoi and gravity had never hit him so hard. Leaden weight dragged his body toward sleep, and the effort to keep his eyes open and his head upright was unbearable. Except for quick cat-naps since the burning of Flare, the long stretch of sleeplessness took its toll, but something else was at work, something strange, seductive and powerful, glimmering at the fringes of his consciousness. To sleep was like being held in the arms of someone strong and nurturing. To remain alert and aware gave him all the usual physical ailments, the headache, sore eyes and heaviness of body except, this time, the chaser of anxiety was intensified as though cranked up a hundred notches tighter. Something about the planet had changed palpably within the time that he and Raoul had been gone.

Katze remembered rummaging through compartments in Merc’s ship, strewing papers, coils of wire, half-emptied packages of instant food, bolts, cauter-pins, machine oil and other clutter until, under a bottle of eyedrops and a pouch of cough syrup, he found a bottle of pills marked with the arrow pointing up toward the cap. Upward for awake, Katze presumed, although had the ship belonged to anyone besides Merc, he wouldn’t dare; that same arrow was apt to have an entirely different meaning in Midas. It tasted bitter, like some of the compounds used to manufacture the products the Syndicate sold under the Federation’s noses. To be safe, he took only one and felt adrenaline pulse through his veins. Perhaps he was just feeling the withdrawal pains from the drug now. It hadn’t helped his emotional condition. That remained stretched, edgy, and far too vulnerable, but it kept his body and mind able to finish the task at hand, which was to land the ship as close to Tanagura as possible without engaging the Amoian security fleet. He wasn’t sure how accurate their sensors were now that Jupiter had malfunctioned, but he didn’t dare take the chance.

This was another skill at which he had considerable practice, thanks to his years as a gangster. Usually, this amounted to a few bribes, which wasn’t to say he didn’t try to skim it off by landing craft outside of Jupiter’s immediate field of detection. Even so, he had to be inventive because clandestine landings were usually masked by other activity around the spaceport and, since Jupiter’s failure, the only activity was departures, not arrivals. As he punched in coordinates that took him far over the desert beyond the air traffic monitors, then let him coast in close to the planet’s surface like some sort of antiquated hover-bus, he wondered whether Iason had had a premonition that he would need these skills one day. He would not put it past the Blondie. Even so, his hands had trembled more than usual with the effort, as though palsied. 

That would’ve been the effect of the stimulant.

There was always a price for ingesting such things and, with age, his body didn’t metabolize things so well. His feet had tapped against the console supports as he wondered when had his nerves gotten this bad? When had he become so emotional? He had always been so cool and collected.

He had expected that sneaking into Eos Tower would be a lot harder than secretively landing Merc’s ship. He figured if Raoul or Paviter instructed Tibór about what happened on Von, he would have no chance. He hoped that he was too insignificant to mention, that they had expected the distance and difficulties of transport from the moon to provide enough obstacles. In that case, his Pet-ring and an iris scan would grant him access. He preferred to be brought to Raoul with as little fuss as possible. Otherwise they would toss him out, the gates permanently barred. It was best to know where a person stood, if it was a clean break and Katze was a free man. 

_Right,_ Katze rubbed his aching head, _like Riki had been free._

The stimulant didn’t last long. He hadn’t even reached the mesas which dotted the landscape beyond Dana Bahn before the surge of adrenaline abruptly plummeted, leaving him in worse condition than when he had first entered the atmosphere. He needed to sleep right now. Since there was no help for it, Katze glided the vessel into a shaded canyon on the north front of a butte, activated the cooling mechanisms, and before the engine’s vacuum finished howling, dropped off. 

It wasn’t long before the dreams started to plague him. Edgy, disconcerting dreams suffused with sinister intent. He hovered at the edge of waking consciousness while these impressions scraped at him, unable to wake, unable to sleep restfully, and with the uncomfortable sensation that his subconscious mind was being probed, although for what, he had no idea. When he finally jolted awake, a mere six hours later, it felt like he had only slept for five minutes.

A look in the mirror told him everything he needed to know. His scar was still livid. His hair was still on the short side, although shaggy and in need of attention. Somehow, he had managed to evade registering the effects of Psychetech illusion-crafting on his physical body, and this actually made him feel more secure and centered since the downfall of Jupiter, like his feet were back on stable territory. 

Yes, he was still a eunuch, still scarred, still weak, still less brilliant than Jupiter’s genetic supermen, and no one would ever mistake him for a member of the Elite again, but he was, unequivocally clear and true, himself and there was a profound sense of power in that realization. 

The walk to Eos took an entire day and was one of the most physically exhausting activities Katze had ever endured, like slogging through knee-deep mud. It was as though the planet’s specific gravity had densified. None of his previous re-entries into the atmosphere had affected him this much. By the time he reached the gate, he was exhausted again.

There was no security left at Eos. The front door stood wide open. The building looked deserted. Katze walked in without being stopped. 

There was the business of climbing endless stairs since the elevators no longer worked, then the door and then the cyborg with the human head. That meant this Blondie with the deep voice who wasn’t Raoul was … Katze opened his eyes, “Lau!”

“You’ve finally decided to join me,” the Gatekeeper of Guardian’s Underworld swept corkscrew spirals of hair over his shoulder.

“Why do I feel like—? Shit, my head—!”

“That would be the effect of withdrawal from Psychetech interference.”

“Psychetech.”

“Where your most intimate dreams came true.”

“Dreams? Whose dreams? I never wanted to be Elite.” Katze considered his dreams. Maybe there had been a trace of fantasy, but it wasn’t deep enough to be considered one of his most intimate dreams. No, those were more closely tied with dignity and liberation, and they moved beyond his personal desires and needs.

“No, I suppose that was Raoul’s, some secret longing for atonement no doubt, some latent regression into human feeling,” Lau removed his hand, only to grasp Katze’s chin and turn it so that the scar was fully exposed. “Psychetech illusions only work to the extent that your mind will stretch to accept them. Some things are just too much of a stretch. With others, it’s surprising what we can believe. From the things it seemed you were willing or not willing to accept, I think you’re a very curious fellow.”

Katze’s forehead furrowed, so Lau clarified, “You would’ve never believed that you could be accepted into Elite tiers but, ever since your foray into Guardian’s Underworld, you’ve always wondered if, with our technology, it would’ve been possible for you to regenerate those part of you which Jupiter maimed. So your fantasy was generated.”

Katze wanted to know, “Is it?”

“Yes—” Lau replied.

Katze could hardly believe his ears.

“—At a price.” 

Katze’s eyes narrowed. As Lau unlaced the complicated bands which secured his Blondie tunic, he felt afraid. The Blondie’s insinuations during the Enclave just after Jupiter’s demise gave him ample reason to feel nervous. His eyes darted around, trying to pierce the gloom that covered the wreckage of Eos Tower’s pinnacle suite. The shadows and cobwebs offered no quick exits and who knew what monstrosities lurked there. Lau instantly read Katze’s thought and chuckled in amusement.

“Not what you think, although—” he left the suggestion open, as though to dangle it like some sort of tantalizing offer.

Katze shook his head. Perhaps he was no longer dressed up like an Elite Doll. Perhaps he was no longer attractive to the senses. Even so, he preferred not to be treated like a Pet.

Lau finished, pulled his tunic open and lifted his shirt. Gleaming metal strung with tubes and wires ran the length of his torso. As with the inhuman thing which now carried Raoul’s head, he was laced with android mechanisms, far fewer of them, to be sure; he was still more human, than robot, but the first incursions into his flesh were irrevocable. “Long before the Tenebrians began their assault on Jupiter, I made my most intimate dream come true. Blondies may live longer than the rest of you human beings, but they still age and die. I wasn’t too keen on it, and Jupiter’s technology gave me the means to defeat my mortality.”

“By amputating your humanity?” Katze accused.

“Now, now!” Lau covered up his mechanical components. “Have you been sleeping all these long years, Katze? What has Jupiter’s Amoi ever been but a long, slow amputation of humanity?”

“Was it necessary to destroy Raoul as well?”

“Destroy?” Lau looked puzzled. “Oh, you mean—! That isn’t Raoul. Never was. At least not the Raoul you ever knew. Only a head was required for that Apheliotroph and the rest of the clone went into biocellular recycling. I’m not sure what Jupiter was thinking about with that particular model though. It doesn’t seem to be any different, energetically, than pure cyborg. Perhaps it wanted to see what the interface would be like between the two patterns of electrical synapses.” 

Relief poured over Katze.

“If that’s not Raoul, then where is he? What have you done with him?”

“I haven’t done anything to him.”

Katze’s skepticism must’ve shown, for Lau chuckled again.

“It’s true that, when we received word that he arrived, I brought my task force of Apheliotrophs in order to arrest him, or at least restrain him from interfering with our plans but neither Raoul, nor his entourage, were anywhere to be found. Instead, Eos was deserted and in ruins. And that is where things stand at present.”

Katze exhaled a breath he hadn’t even known he had been holding. “Then why infect Jupiter with MORT?”

“That wasn’t us. It was unnecessary for our purposes. In fact, when Jupiter was taken out of commission, it became a real nuisance, especially it looked like our power supplies were going to be cut off. So much executive administrative power and skill for the planet was enmeshed in its programs. It wasn’t that Jupiter’s aims were in alignment with ours, precisely, but they weren’t an obstacle or interference either, so we saw no need to circumvent its operations.”

“Your purposes?” 

“Apheliotrophs are cyber/human-clone hybrid engineered by Jupiter to displace the human population. We’ve succeeded. There is no longer any need on Amoi for human life except in its capacity as cellular cattle for our biological replacement tissue or as goods to be sold off world in exchange for resources.”

“Displace us, why?”

The tiniest seed of human sentience, a moment of compassion seemed to ripple through Lau’s eyes. It was gone so quickly Katze wondered if he had imagined it, “Because you are imperfect. You break down. You can be easily injured. You deteriorate. You die. And you have a history of messing things up.” 

Katze wanted to argue further, but it seemed pointless. If Lau’s ideals were wrapped up in a physical body that never aged and never died, if that was perfection, then nothing Katze could say would change his mind. Any regards to the quality of consciousness which resided within that body seemed irrelevant to the former Blondie.

There were some other burning questions, “How is it you and the Apheliotrophs managed to escape the virus? I mean, not even the androids escaped.”

The life in Lau’s eyes had moved to such a deep place that it no longer seemed to exist.

“I don’t know that we have,” he said.

“Is there any reason why you are keeping me here then?” Katze sat up with difficulty. “What do you intend to do with me?”

“You will stay with us to ensure Raoul’s compliance should he resurface at any point,” Lau explained.

“A hostage?”

“So to speak.”

“That will never work. You were a Blondie. You should know he would sooner let me die than let me interfere.”

Lau laughed. “You overestimate the power of Jupiter’s indoctrination. Without the restraint of Jupiter, Raoul has regressed. At any rate, it is impossible for you to leave the tower. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend you leave the suite. In my experience, the interaction between Apheliotrophs and humans doesn’t have a very positive effect on humans.”

Katze recalled Kyrie and Manon Kuga’s madness.

“Other than that,” Lau turned to leave, “you are free to wander at will.”

So that was how it was! Free to wander because Lau knew he wasn’t free at all. He was hemmed in by boundaries of a horror which he couldn’t fully imagine, one that sent two young men at the height of their physical strength into catatonic shock. Katze recalled the metallic creature with Raoul’s head and shuddered. He did not want to think of the extent to which humans had been brutalized to create these monsters and wondered at the type of thinking which even conceived of it. 

From Lau’s candid admission, the Apheliotrophs were not free and clear of the Tenebrian invasion just yet. He wondered how they managed to avoid the breakdowns that all the other cybernetic machinery had experienced, if there was some hidden purpose that the Tenebrian Priestess Cult had in store for them, for which they had been spared. 

Katze rubbed his aching head. He truly wished he had an Elite mind, capable of plucking out the patterns in these random threads and weaving them into a new strategy.

Right now, there were more pressing concerns, like hunger and whether or not there was anything to eat in the wreckage of Raoul’s apartment. He pulled himself to his feet and tottered out of the former front vestibule. 

The suite looked more like an underground cavern than an apartment. The furniture was scattered and broken as though it had been blasted out of place by an enormous explosion, but one which wasn’t incendiary. Giant cobwebs draped over everything. The windows were covered with a smoky film that almost completely blocked all light, except for three that had been shattered where sunlight poured in like great spotlights, illuminating only a small area beyond their field, and the charged magnetic-particulant painting of the Kressellian Raiders caught in a Solar Flare which he had noticed back when Hilarion first set up the piano. The rest lay in almost impenetrable shadow. 

The entire floor of blue granite or marble or whatever polished stone it was had been laced with fibers that now looked like roots. They had smashed the tiles. Chips and fragments of polished stone were scattered in tiny heaps of rubble around the room. Curious, Katze followed one of the roots into the Great Hall where the Holocaust Piano once stood. Instead of the pianoforte, a black energy field thrummed and pulsated.

“An interesting mystery, isn’t it?” Lau suddenly spoke. Katze tensed, startled by the human voice. “We still haven’t deciphered what it is. It seems to repel those who touch it.”

Katze stretched out his hand.

“Of course, you are welcome to try—” was the last thing he heard before his fingers stroked the edge of that all-consuming darkness and were suddenly seized. Lau was wrong. Like a vortex, the energy field sucked him in and Raoul’s apartment disappeared. 

“I’m getting sick and tired of blacking out,” was his first cogent thought, which, in the absence of any other sort of sensory stimuli, sounded as though it had been spoken out loud. 

At least the headache was gone.

Since he was perfectly lucid and aware while in this condition of free-floating through some sort of void, he hadn’t blacked out at all. He was trapped in darkness with only his thoughts to keep him company and, for lack of any other stimulation, they were getting old fast. He wasn’t really sure how long he had been floating like this. It seemed like forever and, now that he was conscious, it was boring enough for him to make him wish he wasn’t.

He was so caught up in thoughts about how bored he was, he never even noticed the music: piano music, strains of song which sounded both distant and close at the same time, as though filtered down to the bottom of a swimming pool. When he finally heard it, he followed the sound. It wasn’t that it led him any place in particular, just that images coalesced and grew clear: pearly daylight streamed in through the polished windows of Eos Tower, the blue tiles lay intact, the walls were free of spiderwebs, and the musician seated at the bench of the Holocaust Pianoforte was someone he knew.

“Raoul!” 

There seemed to be some sort of barrier between them. He was invisible and inaudible to Raoul, for the Blondie never registered his presence. He kept playing. What phrases of the song that Katze could hear clearly were both sweet and sorrowful, and although it was tempting to relax and just listen to the music, his agitation wouldn’t go. There was too much urgency in making a connection. He wondered how to break through the strange, watery, almost gelatinous barricade and suddenly felt fibres extending from the palms of his hands like roots. He felt them flowing through the substance until they managed to pierce it and open a clearing wide enough for him to step through.

Raoul looked up, like waking up.

“Katze, you finally made it back.” He pushed the piano stool back as he rose to his feet.

Katze rushed to throw his arms around him. 

Raoul reeled back, startled by this uncharacteristic show of passion. 

“Back? What are you talking about?” Katze clung fast. “I was never here.”

Slowly, as though growing accustomed to the thought of Katze willingly embracing him, Raoul inched his large hands around the other man. It was not from the solidity or heaviness of his hands that Katze knew he was real, that his touch was not illusory, but from the warmth. Raoul’s hands radiated with it. A gentle warmth also poured from Katze’s own body, especially from the region of his chest. He wanted to impress this upon Raoul so that, if there were any doubts, if there was any reason to believe he wasn’t real, the impression of that warmth would remain. So he held onto Raoul for what seemed like hours.

“Come, I want to show you my latest project.” Raoul finally broke off, leaving Katze with the uncomfortable sensation that he had not really connected with the other man at all. Raoul might be aware of his presence, but seemed to be caught in some sort of alternate reality and the two separate dimensions weren’t quite synchronized. Since there appeared to be no other choice, Katze decided to play along. He allowed himself to be led by Raoul over to the painting of the Kressellian Raiders caught in a solar flare, next to the Turner and the Altdorfer. 

Raoul reached his hand out and touched the painting. Katze held his breath. He knew next to nothing about art besides its value on the black market, but he knew enough that charged particulant paintings were so fragile, so easy to destroy that they came with ridiculously stringent packaging technology for transport. They were a nuisance and he hated it everytime he had to fence one. If this were a real painting, then what Raoul was doing would surely destroy it. Raoul stirred the air which caused the magnetized particulants to swirl and the image to evaporate. The spaceship disappeared in what seemed to be a solar storm. Katze had resolved himself to the possibility that the painting was ruined for good when some new imagery started to emerge from the surface, images of planets and their asteroids, of the entire Glan system. He braced himself, a strange prickle crawling up his spine. By the time the painting settled, he realized he was looking at a military chart of their sun and all its planets. 

“We must focus on the Federation colonies first,” Raoul was saying, “before we can hope to subdue Novaterra.”

“I’m sorry,” Katze blinked. “I’m not hearing you properly. I thought you just said that you intend to invade Novaterra.”

“Once the Apheliotroph army is complete, yes.”


	13. Pax Romana

For a moment, Katze wondered if he was stuck in another Psychetech illusion, or the ultimate Psychetech illusion.

“Raoul, our planet is dying. We’re on the verge of our own extinction and you’re planning military conquests?”

“It’s necessary, you see.” Raoul cut him off. “Amoi was never meant to support life. There isn’t enough water to keep the atmosphere stable. Our birth rate is about five to eight males for every female, and most of the women are barren.”

“So you’ve decided that we will achieve stability by attacking the two most powerful forces in our planetary system?”

“We cannot survive without the resources that the Federation provides, and yet, the only commodity we can offer for sale is slaves—and the biotechnology which creates them.”

“They will wipe us out.” 

“We’re dying anyway.”

Okay, so Raoul wasn’t insane after all. He was just preoccupied with the problems of trying to keep a planet fit for human habitation. Still, “This may well be, Raoul, but don’t you think there are more pressing concerns right now? Like the fact that the Priestess Cult is trying to take us over and the Apheliotrophs are—” he hesitated, “in revolt?”

“Ah, so Zazen has finally declared himself, has he?” Raoul stirred the particulants again and after the swirl settled, the three-dimensional image of Amoi, its twin moons and the Percks Asteroid Belt came into focus.

Something about the twin moons drew Katze’s attention. It was the sound of ocean breakers, the strange phenomena that he caught while they were on the Von moon surface.

Raoul began walking toward the entrance of his suite at Eos Tower.

“You knew?” Katze felt strangely disoriented as they proceeded through the apartment. There were no signs of invasion anywhere. The floor tiles were intact. Sun shone through the windows. Furniture had not been overturned and tossed helter skelter. The door was a true door and not a mass of fibres swaying like the tentacles of a silky jellyfish.

“Not precisely.” Raoul strode through the door and onto the elevator.

“You suspected?” Katze rephrased his question in hope of a clearer answer.

“No,” Raoul said. “Not about that.”

The security check systems were not functioning. There were no iris-scans necessary for activating the elevator or opening any of the doors. These differences from the past workings of Eos Tower made something clear to Katze: within the black shielded space which was the interface melded with the Holocaust Piano, there was an enormous amount of illusion in place. He had to fight with the liquid quality of the air to bring his consciousness back, not so much to the present, since this particular place didn’t seem to share the same time-space continuity as Tanagura or Amoi, but he couldn’t know for certain, but just to sharpness and focus. He kept wanting to sink into a cozy sort of haze, like a drugged pet. Katze didn’t know how much of Amoi’s situation was real or fabricated by Psychetech weaponry.

He was idly curious about how far the illusions of the interface settled. As they walked out onto the Mezzanine level of the tower and all the golden glory that was Eos and its nearest outlying communities spread under their eyes like veins of rich minerals, he decided that it probably extended to all of Tanagura, if not all of Amoi. 

Raoul led him to the underground transportation chutes that connected the Underworld with Eos. There were neither Apheliotrophs, nor cyborgs to be seen anywhere. Their absence made Katze very edgy. He expected them to jump out like a troop of Onyx police officers ready for a cut of action on the black market.

“Guardianship over the Underworld has its own incumbent perils. What Iason and I suspected was that Lau had resorted to cyberfusion after his lifespan exceeded the usual rate by several weeks. We took a calculated risk in anticipation that Jupiter might—” Raoul reconsidered his words. “A cyberfused race of humans seemed preferable to a race of only androids and no humans at all. We were curious to see how much of his humanity he would retain.” 

“I see,” Katze said, even though he didn’t. He fumbled and patted around the uniform that Paviter had lent him for a pack of cigarettes, in hopes that the habit would reconnect him to his senses more accurately. There were none to be found.

“Not to worry,” Raoul smirked, a sight which shocked his companion to the quick. “He’s still mostly human.”

“It doesn’t bother you that he has staged this coup d’état?”

“Not really.” 

This was so unlike Raoul, or any other Blondie, that Katze had the crawly sensation that this wasn’t him. Even so, when Raoul opened the door to the transport pod, Katze climbed in right beside him. As though he read Katze’s thoughts, Raoul laughed, “There are always small problems and obstacles.”

“Small!”

“This is only one of many things which we will have to deal with at the appropriate time. Right now, it is of less concern to me that Lau is running Tanagura than the question of how the Apheliotrophs managed to avoid MORS.”

“Yes, I wondered about that, too,” Katze’s forehead wrinkled. “Absolutely everything has been invaded with these strange spider webs, because everything was tied into Jupiter. So how could Lau’s army escape from that? Not even the pure androids were able to get away. I suppose that’s because of the human element fused together with the cyborgs, right?” 

The transport pod took off with a flash, everything visual outside of it dissolving into lines.

Raoul glanced at Katze. “I’m sorry, what did you ask?”

“The cyber-fusion with humans, that’s the only thing which makes Apheliotrophs different than the androids or Jupiter, isn’t it? And besides, they didn’t interfere with the MORT virus or the Tenebrian Priestess Cult because the Tenebrians weren’t interfering with their schemes and strategies.”

“Is that so? And who told you this?”

“Lau.”

Raoul reached over and ruffled his hair like he was a little boy. “I suspect that the Apheliotrophs were more intimately connected with Jupiter than any of us can imagine.”

A strange shiver crept up Katze’s spine.

“Do you mean to say—?”

“The first thing that struck me as strange as the planetary systems began to shut down was that an intelligence of Jupiter’s magnitude had not anticipated an attack from Off World. How was that possible? Consider the odds, and it isn’t. So, given that Jupiter must’ve made a backup, what form would it take?”

“You aren’t saying that Jupiter’s consciousness resides within those ... those _things,_ are you?”

“Simple process of elimination, really. In the end, what was the last artificial life-form left standing?”

Katze gaped.

“It’s probably not the full intelligence. It’s something nascent perhaps, like a seed or a fragment of a holograph.”

Katze considered, “Which would be the full intelligence.”

“In embryonic form, yes.”

It took a minute or two for Katze to absorb this new information, or reel inwardly in shock at it.

So the Tenebrians had already infiltrated Amoi ages ago, with Jupiter’s tacit knowledge and cooperation, or so, Katze figured, it appeared to Raoul.

“Where are we going?” He suddenly thought to ask.

“Jupiter’s Tower.”

“Oh. Why?”

“Because it’s only while we’re under the protection of the Holocaust Piano interface that we can move on the Priestesses of Tenebrios with impunity.”

“We’re going to—what?” Katze started to feel panicky. “Are you sure about that? You don’t seem—”

He sealed his lips. Raoul turned to face him. Katze didn’t know how to put his words across in a way that wouldn’t offend the Blondie. Nor could he think of a way to say what he needed to say with tact. “You don’t seem quite in your right mind.”

Instead of reacting in the usual Blondie fashion, Raoul laughed. Katze knew at that moment that Raoul was definitely not in his right mind.

“Even so.” The transportation pod slowed to a halt. The doors unsealed and lifted like gull wings. Raoul stepped out, and offered a hand to Katze. “Shall we continue?”

“What are you planning on doing here, Raoul?” The smaller man wasn’t sure if he wanted to be part of this.

“It’s alright, my pet. Don’t you trust me by now?”

Trust the man who tried to leave him behind on the Von moon? Katze thought that one through a little further: tried to leave him behind on the Von moon because he didn’t want Katze to get hurt. Because he cared enough to assume some parental-style control, not that Katze appreciated it. But Katze had chosen to circumvent that control and returned to Amoi and Raoul, no matter what the danger. He wasn’t about to second-guess that decision now.

“Trust has nothing to do with it,” Katze put his hand in Raoul’s and was pulled from the car.

The apparent emptiness and harmlessness of Jupiter’s tower did nothing to put the former Furniture at ease. Katze knew that the lower chambers of the tower were supposedly flooded with Benzine and other gasses and that Raoul had not vented them because of the danger to the Amoian atmosphere. Yet, neither he nor Raoul were affected by any poisonous gas as they walked through the spacious, brightly lit corridors. Unobstructed, they took the elevator up and continued through the antechamber to Jupiter’s hall. Raoul threw the doors to her meeting room open wide.

Katze saw a strange sculptural figure standing in the midst of an energy field which looked like an old-fashioned Tesslar globe. Electrical charges shot in and out of the statue like lightning sent and received.

“Alike, but different,” Raoul murmured.

“How so?”

“Jupiter is surrounded by gold and white light. Now that it has been possessed by a Priestess, there is darkness instead.”

Katze looked at the figure. There seemed to be a face, but it was swallowed in blackness, just like the place in Raoul’s penthouse where the Holocaust Piano once sat. The entire figure seemed to swallow light. Wherever it moved, the room seemed dim.

“You must remain here, Katze,” Raoul explained.

He had said nothing about keeping the doors closed, so Katze stood just shy of the hall and watched as the Blondie moved forward and sat in a chair, next to a small table. A wine-glass and an opened bottle of wine materialized in front of him, but he did not take it. Then the room seemed to hum with electro-magnetic waves as the crackles of electricity flickered and vibrated.

Every once in awhile, Raoul would respond but the conversation was one-sided to Katze’s senses.

"..."

“We face something similar. It is the conditions of our planet which have created our imbalance, not the will of the individuals on it, although it may be that the Artificial Intelligence which ruled us may have amplified the situation.”

"..."

“I considered military strikes against the major ruling authorities in our planetary system in order to stabilize the Amoian atmosphere. We are in especially short supply of water. We cannot continue to negotiate the purchase of water with slaves. Our survival depends upon keeping what human life we have on the planet surface itself. There is a shortage of the essential materials which generate life. We cannot continue to grow it and send it off-planet.”

"..."

"Our planet was in imminent danger, so this seemed the only course of action left to us. It was not our intention to destabilize the outworld sector. Nor was that consideration going to stop us. For us, it was a matter of need outweighing risk against eventual consequences.”

"..."

"Yes, we are open to alternatives. We prefer them.”

"..."

"If you were to vacate the Tower, the Artificial Intelligence which ruled us will undoubtedly re-enter.”

"..."

"Yes, the one know as Jupiter. Currently, it resides within the army of cyber-human fusions called the Apheliotrophs under the leadership of the Second Blondie, Zazen Lau, who is also one of them. They have staged a coup d’état, centered within my penthouse suite at Eos Tower, and I have no authority over them.”

"..."

"You are certainly welcome to try. Jupiter has never been open to negotiation and truce. It runs according to its will and may only concede as a strategical maneuver, in order to win control later. I believe negotiation would be futile. Yet Amoi will certainly perish if the functional aspects of that Artificial Intelligence are not restored. It governs everything from the cleansing of the atmosphere to the regeneration of cellular life. It is the repository for the cultural and historical memories of human existence prior to settling within the Outworld sector.”

"..."

Katze found the remaining conversation too disjointed and difficult to follow. It seemed that Raoul and the statue with the Tenebrian Priestess came to some sort of resolution, because he rose to his feet and shook her hand. But as he left her presence, the expression on his face was dark and threatening. Katze decided not to ask until they were back in the transportation pod and on their way to Eos Tower. Even then, Raoul refused to discuss it.

The thought that Jupiter had chosen the time of the Tenebrian attack to launch the next phase of human subjugation left Katze sick at heart.

“Why did Jupiter concern itself with us at all if we’re not necessary for its survival?” he asked, his voice bleak and his eyes dulled. “If it considers us such a hindrance, why not send us to other planets and close the place off from human habitation? Why tie us to this place by fusing us with its machinery?”

Raoul stared long and hard at Katze before coming to the apparent decision that his questions weren’t rhetorical. “We have something it doesn’t have, something it has decided it needs.”

Katze was thinking in general terms, like life, feelings, heart.

“Our ancestral memories of Earth,” Raoul put a stop to those thoughts. “They are the very foundation of our minds. Jupiter was a respository for memories of Earth implanted by the first settlers, but its memories are subjective. The collective memory is not. It is an actual recording of what happened from the human perspective from the dawn of our birth. I suspect that is the real reason why the Tenebrians are allowed to be here, why they were permitted to implant MORS: in order to tap into the source of our shared memories. Jupiter couldn’t do this alone. Jupiter is too akin to our consciousness. It required a different type of intelligence, something alien to Jupiter, preferably something which had no idea that it was being used.”

Katze had no idea what Raoul was talking about.

“Look, don’t you remember the dream you had back when the Psychetech interference first began?—Your dream of Ceres in its harvest aspect?”

Katze vaguely remembered the dream. It felt so long ago.

“I asked you then how was it possible for you to have such a vision when you’ve never experienced anything like it before. Haven’t you thought about that since?”

Something about Raoul’s question struck Katze in a peculiar fashion. His mind flickered back to Hilarion’s library and the entries he had read on poetry, flowers and their perfume. What struck him about the dream of Ceres was how much it was like poetry, how it spoke to a different part of his mind than his usual thoughts. He supposed this was connected to what Raoul was talking about.

“The only thing that all human beings share is our ancestral origin on Earth,” Raoul explained further.

Something else troubled Katze.

“Raoul, when you entered the Holocaust Piano interface, what happened to Paviter, or Tibór, or the Novaterran woman you met on Von? Did Lau capture them?”

Raoul considered. “It’s possible, but unlikely.”

“Where are they?”

“I believe before I was linked to the interface, they spoke of departing for Jupiter’s Tower, but I’m sure that it didn’t happen. At least, I’m sure that the former Priestess, the one whom you called “Novaterran”, was not part of that expedition.”

Former Priestess! Katze was gobsmacked. “If she’s not with them, with Paviter and Tibór, where is she?”

Raoul snorted. “It is more of a question of where are we? We, you and I, dear Katze, are in her.”

“In her!”

“That’s right,” Raoul looked at him, amusement lighting his face. “In order to interface with through the Holocaust Piano, we had to enter through her mind.”

“But ... but ... how—?”

“It’s alright,” Raoul patted his shoulder. “You don’t have to understand fully.”

“How is this safe?”

“Safe? I don’t know that it is. I do know that women have a difficult time surviving on the planet of Amoi. So there is only a certain amount of time any of the Priestesses can abide here before they are forced to take their leave.”

“A built-in expiry date?”

“That’s right.”

Not until they had returned to his suite did Raoul speak about the aspect of his meeting with the Priestess in Jupiter’s Tower which had enraged him.

“There is no way we can survive without a steady external supplier. Our seas are too shallow. Our atmosphere is too thin. We will die out within the year.” Raoul was about to drop his fists on top of the Holocaust Piano with the same old frustration, but held himself back just in time. He remembered the profoundly negative effects this had in the past. Instead, he paced.

It troubled Katze that Raoul was trapped by this thought. The Blondie seemed to believe it was possible to save Amoi by going to war with forces with more strength and resources and numbers than their planet could ever produce let alone sustain. Moreover, that it was possible to do this with a force of cyber-human hybrids that held the vestiges of an artificial intelligence hostile to human life, one that sought to alter humans beyond their human form, and through the process of these changes, eliminate their humanity. Raoul seemed to believe it was possible to pull Lau and the Apheliotrophs back under his command.

A small dark thought appeared in Katze’s mind. The effects of it produced a physical reaction in his body, causing the surface of his skin to contract like shivering, or like being caught by the electrical shock of his pet-ring. What if Raoul was caught in one of these Psychetech desire webs that he had read about back in Hilarion’s library? What if his attention and focus was drawn to this mad idea of conquest because the Tenebrian Priestess who seemed to be in control of Jupiter’s Tower had read his desire to improve Amoi and was manipulating it?

“There has to be another way,” Katze burst out. A new idea flashed into his mind. “There is another way.”

Raoul stopped in mid-stride. His back straightened. Katze’s words seemed to cause tremors in the atmosphere, ripples which lessened the cloying heaviness of the air. It became less gluey, less thick. At the same time, it felt as though he was lighter, as though the pull of gravity on his body had grown less powerful.

Raoul turned to Katze. “If you have a better suggestion, I’m open to hearing it.”

Katze swallowed hard. He had no plan. He didn’t even know where to start creating a plan, but anything that formed in the objective part of his consciousness would be subjected to attacks from the Tenebrian Cult anyway. He couldn’t depend on his sense of reason. He couldn’t trust his own rationality. Raoul had spoken of primordial memories, aspects of the mind which existed outside of his ordinary consciousness. So these extensions of the mind were possible. His thoughts flew through the images of his recent past, back to Hilarion’s library which was like the physical representation of memory itself. He considered the way the stories of flowers and poetry which he had scanned had affected him. How they made things appear in his mind that were not related to the words or the book, but were random connections that eventually joined into a cohesive whole. 

He thought of the painting of the Solar Flare and how the charged magnetic particulants moved, and the image of Amoi and its two moons that swam out of those curtains of light. Amoi and Von and the second moon which had created that strange phenomenon of sound traveling through space, the sound of ocean breakers, the sound of water. Amoi needed water to stabilize its environment, to complete the terraforming project that its group of scientists began before Jupiter turned strange. It needed water and Raoul was about to launch a suicidal invasion for …

“The second moon is made of frozen water,” Katze said, walking over to the painting, reaching his hand into the magnetic particulants and giving them another swirl. They heaved and roiled, and slowly coalesced into a globe, the three-dimensional image of the second moon.

Startled, Raoul moved closer. He stared at the image of the asteroid, the distinctive colour and texture.

It was clearly covered with a substantial amount of ice.

“How did you know?” He shot back a look toward Katze, filled with surprise, wonder, and admiration.

“I just used a different part of my mind.” Katze shrugged. “And to tell you the truth I don’t know. It all has to be confirmed. It could just be a—”

Raoul cut off the stream of his words with a wave of his hand, as though through his doubts were enough to change the possible reality of it to an illusion. “Jupiter blocked us from exploring or setting up colonies on the surface of the second moon, or even from sending geophysicists to take core samples. We were never provided with reasons.”

“That still doesn’t prove anything,” Katze continued to argue. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure where I got the idea that the moon was covered with ice. I don’t know.”

He couldn’t trust the thought. He couldn’t trust the way it had appeared to him. 

Raoul continued to play with the Magnetic Particulant painting.

“Then tell me how the thought occurred to you.” He swirled the moon around and around, examining it from every angle.

Katze scratched his head. He described the sounds of ocean breakers on Von, and how his appreciation of poetry and the natural experiences described in the books from Hilarion’s library gave him this wild idea about a different way of “knowing” something, as well as what Raoul had described about collective memories, and how he was so desperate for ideas of how not to go to war that, “basically, I was clutching at straws. I grabbed the idea out of the blue.”

“Out of the blue?” Raoul looked at the painting again. The moon shone with a silvery blue light, the colour of water. Magnetic Particulant paintings were said to be so sensitive that shifts in a person’s thoughts would be reflected within the imagery somehow, not necessarily with an exact visual replica. His last song with the Holocaust Piano had provided him with no other vision except the colour blue.

“There are other problems with Amoi besides the shallowness of our oceans and atmosphere,” he told Katze. “Very few women can survive or bear children here.”

Katze figured as much.

“Just as very few men can survive the atmosphere of Tenebrios.”

“Then why are they trying to take us over?” Katze asked.

“The Priestesses use a different type of consciousness. Reason has nothing to do with it. Do you remember our discussion about Coelescent Telepathy?”

It was too long ago. The details were lost. Katze shook his head.

“One of the side-effects is problems with spatial-temporal alignment.”

“Which means?”

“They confuse the future with the past, except that the past no longer exists and the future hasn’t been created yet, so it can be “re-created” differently at any point. The difficulty with that type of consciousness is its capacity for delusion. The Tenebrian at Jupiter’s Tower seemed to believe that Amoi’s attempted conquests of Novaterra and the Federation will throw our Outworld system into such disarray that Tenebrios will be sealed off and doomed. It’s invasion of Amoi was an attempt to pre-empt that possibility.” Raoul reached out and placed his hand on Katze’s shoulder, “which brings us back to your idea about mining the second moon for water.”

Katze stammered, “My idea didn’t quite get that far but, yes, that would be the logical step if the moon should prove to have water. But what about my different type of consciousness? I don’t understand. I don’t follow.”

“We rely on reason because it is the only accurate way of determining what is real in the moment with what we can perceive and objectify with our senses. There are other forms of intelligence, which may be subject to delusion, but that doesn’t mean they are less valuable.”

“So what are you saying?”

I think we have to confirm whether your suspicion holds true about the composition of the second moon. We have to prove it one way or another.”

Katze blinked. “So, what do we do?”

Raoul looked around, “We have to find our way out of the interface.”

“Okay, how do we do that?”

“I don’t know.”


	14. Leaving the Interface

Entire days passed. Raoul and Katze tried every means they could think or dream of to leave the interface. Some efforts, like reinitializing and reprogramming the banks of Amoian computers or working with the Holocaust Piano, seemed more likely to have successful results. When reasonable ideas failed, others—wild shots in the dark, gambles at the possibility that the answer lay in chaos rather than order—were tried. They opened doors and windows throughout Eos in different sequences as though they were mathematical equations instead of entrances and exits, or took the underground shuttles to the end of each line to see where they led, or darted into random shops to see if there were actual products on the shelves. Nothing worked. 

Raoul showed a patience for this sort of activity which left Katze sick with inadequacy, annoyance, and admiration, usually all at once. At each failure, his pulse would climb as though he had sucked back too many cups of coffee, something he hadn’t experienced since his first days on the Black Market, whereas Raoul simply absorbed his frustrations, or shrugged them off and persevered, or moved onto the next plan. He frequently passed obstacles where Katze gave up, and he always carried the mongrel along with him. 

Sometimes, it seemed as though they had succeeded: the place looked less sparkly and bright; smoke permeated the atmosphere, choking it with the sour smell of carbon; people wore the same expressions of stress and anxiety that had crossed their faces when Tanagura had first started falling apart. Then something would show up which was noticeably off-kilter: the doors did not require passkeys or iris scans, for example, or there were no vehicles on the streets, or a quiet hush like space outside of the Amoian atmosphere filled the air. It was the same otherworld, but with a new veneer, as though the consciousness which generated and ruled this place was adapting and creating a new false front to fit in with their sense of how Tanagura should appear. 

Katze was learning to exist in constant uncertainty, disorientation and pervasive insecurity again. It was nothing new. The same conditions had dogged him all his life. If things weren’t so clearly off, they would’ve seemed a lot like how things in Tanagura had always been.

“Do you think there will come a time when the computer gets everything right to the point where we are actually fooled?” He asked the Blondie after about their fifty-first attempt.

Raoul looked at him. “Will it matter?”

That stumped Katze. Of course reality was preferable to fantasy and illusion. He remembered, all too clearly, the stress he had experienced as Raoul insisted he try to pass himself off as a member of the Elite. But if his fake self was so thoroughly integrated into this illusory world that the fakery could never be detected, wouldn’t that be an improvement? 

The gulf between being and becoming had never seemed so wide or fraught with unseen hazards.

“Why can’t they just let us go?” He thought of another question. “I thought you worked everything out with them at Jupiter’s Tower.”

“Ah, but you’ve forgotten,” Raoul replied. “We aren’t here because of the Cult. We’re here because of the Kressellian leader’s interface.”

Katze’s mouth snapped closed. He had forgotten.

Eventually, even Raoul reached a point where too many attempts failed, knowledge failed, even wild ideas failed. Urgency was constant and wore at them like a low-grade ear infection. They had to escape. They had to neutralize Lau and the Apheliotrophs. They had to disconnect the Tenebrians from the computer which governed Amoi. They had to send a geophysical team to read seismic graphs of the second moon. They had a plan for once they were freed. Actually Katze didn’t, but Raoul did, presumably, and sitting around in this dreamy world where everything seemed so simple and flowed so smoothly wasn’t going to help it come to pass, no matter how many times they had sex. 

At least they were having sex. On a fairly constant basis, too, about four to six times a day.

Sadly, after years of gauging the most infinitesimal changes in other peoples’ nuances in order to survive, after having his nose rubbed repeatedly in his lack of value to Tanagura, Katze was acutely sensitive to how wrong it felt. 

Not his body. In spite of the Blondie’s ridiculously exaggerated physiology, Katze’s body felt no hurtful effects. Yet he clearly remembered how Riki limped around after a session with Iason, even after partnership with the Blondie had become a regular event. So he suspected there was something fake about the sex with Raoul on top of everything else. Not that Katze wanted his body to get torn up; the fact that it hadn’t was just another sign that things weren’t quite right.

Afterwards, Raoul would roll off without a word or sign of pleasure and leave. That should’ve been okay, too; Katze had never needed reassurance, expected not to receive it in fact. 

Somehow, it wasn’t. 

Raoul would walk back to the computer banks to repeat an attempt that had failed before, looking for a new variation on the pattern, or to play the piano with the same mindless sense of pastime as their sex. It seemed as though sex was, for him, like a distraction from ever-present failure. It held no more meaning than taking a shower, trimming hair or nails—sloughing off dead cells, the only analogy that came to Katze, who didn’t like being a dead cell receptacle.

To keep from dwelling on how creepy and strange this felt, Katze avoided Raoul. He looked for activities to fill his time. He cooked, cleaned and perused catalogues of products from the designers and craftsmen of Midas, just like he used to when he served Iason as Furniture.

“Thank you so much for using me,” He muttered bitterly one day, slinging his forearms over his eyes after Raoul started to leave again.

“What?” Raoul turned, shocked. Katze silently cursed his own inbred hurtle toward self-destruction. What on earth compelled him to say that out loud?

They stared at each other for what seemed like hours, as though seeing each other for the first time. Then they pulled away, Raoul wandering off to wherever he wandered off to and Katze rocketing out of bed to take a shower. 

Afterward, he decided to visit Hilarion Fyss’ shop in Midas to scout through his reference library, searching for fresh clues, a new perception or thought-pattern. 

Even that place had changed. The antiques and artwork were still there. Books, papers and objects that Katze couldn’t recognize still lined the archives. The Sapphire was still on Von, but his Furniture, Kosai, was nowhere to be seen. Katze would’ve been surprised to find him there. He picked up the books again and poured through their pages, trying to locate the references that he had found before, but it seemed as though words would flicker and disappear as his eyes focused upon them. 

All references to Tenebrios had vanished. There was no entry for the Priestess Cult. It was as though the memory of these things was slowly wiped from his mind, like he was being lulled into oblivion with the same effect as hypnosis carrying away an old habit. There was something he had to remember … something about poetry, and flowers, and perfume! Desire! Desire webs! Traps!

It was too simple in this reflective world of Tanagura. Everything, from the handy way in which all their problems seemed about to be ironed out once they got back to the “real world” to the copious amounts of sex where Raoul and Katze strove to make up for lost years and opportunities. It was all too slick and unreal. 

Suddenly another realization shocked Katze, that this unreality even applied to Raoul. The Raoul Am that Katze had known was not this man. Raoul would never accept a Furniture so easily into his bed, ever. It just wouldn’t happen. Blondies were powerful and imperious, thoroughly invested in the hierarchical structure that Jupiter had imposed over Tanagura, in fact, genetically manufactured to support and sustain it. He would expect the best and get it, and Katze was far from the best.

Katze started to wonder at which point he, himself, had started being trapped in the desire webs, in the fulfilment of his own wishes. He wondered if it began at the point when, after years of no interaction with the Blondie Syndicate, Raoul’s face suddenly appeared on his computer monitor and commanded him to Hilarion’s shop. 

Right from the very start, it seemed.

There it was, his oldest, truest companion, that familiar feeling of despair. 

Everything was pared back to the beginning; everything he experienced since walking out of his hole of a basement apartment could possibly be, most likely was an illusion. Still, he wondered, how did one interact with something that wasn’t real? While knowing that it wasn’t real?

He wasn’t prepared for what faced him when he returned to Eos, in the main hall standing next to the bank of windows—tall, blond, icy, unreachable and beautiful, “Iason!”

Raoul stood just a small ways apart, his expression carefully neutral.

Neither of them paid the slightest attention to Katze. 

Katze couldn’t stop himself. He ran in and circled, scanning the luxurious room. Circling and scanning it for signs of Riki, who was nowhere to be seen. 

“You’ve made some changes,” Iason moved around the hall in the opposite direction, his coat swirling around after him. “You prefer gold to blue.”

“Indeed,” Raoul inclined his head.

“Paintings to natural stone.”

Raoul kept quiet. Natural stone on Amoi did not come in the deep blue shade that Iason had favoured.

“Traditional furnishings to—”

“Was there something you wanted to tell me?” 

“Aren’t you happy to see me?” Iason whirled back, a slight smirk crooking up the corner of his mouth.

Raoul chose not to respond to this. 

In a flash, Iason was at his side, leaning against his shoulder, sliding a gloved finger down the side of his jaw, the line of his neck, the lines of his torso, while murmuring in his ear. “You were always so pleased when we got together before.”

Katze watched their interaction as though watching spacecraft collide, in a collision of his own with the past, with disenfranchisement and helplessness, unable even to voice his objections. His terror of Iason still had the power to affect him.

“Why so silent, dear friend?” Iason all but purred, the movements of his fingers changing from insinuation to outright proposition. He had slid behind Raoul, arms threading through to the front of his body. Slowly, with swaying, rocking movements, he turned him around so that they both faced Katze. He stared at the Furniture over Raoul’s shoulder, eyes narrowing like a snake looking at its next meal. “Is he the reason?” 

Katze started to back away.

“I always thought he was very pretty,” Iason kept murmuring, “even after his looks were spoiled.”

The hands had started to strum across the front of Raoul’s stomach.

“If you like him so much, why don’t we take him together? You could use his mouth while I do him from the back, or the other way around, or you could enjoy him, while I enjoy you. Which would you prefer?”

Raoul jerked away from the other figure’s arms and leers. He walked over to the bar and poured himself a drink. He raised the glass to his lips and was about to sip when he froze.

Even Katze could follow his thoughts. Was it even alcohol? Why did he need to drink anything here to feel the effects of drinking? Wasn’t it enough just to want to feel drunk?

Raoul handed the glass over to Iason who accepted it with a look of surprise, walked over to one of the chairs, and sat down. While Iason knocked the contents of that glass back, Raoul asked Katze, “Is this your secret fantasy?”

“What?” 

“This arrangement with Iason, is it some secret daydream you’ve been keeping to yourself?”

Iason snorted. Katze’s mouth worked silently. Iason, Raoul and him—together?

“Hell, no!” He finally forced past his shock. 

“So you’ve never had a hankering to have a threesome with me and Iason?” Raoul double-checked. “Or me and another Blondie perhaps?”

Katze had enough terror and uncertainty with his attachment to Raoul.

“Too damned scary!” He almost wheezed in panic. Raoul had no idea what courage it took for him to admit this in that company. Iason had never dragged a skewer through Raoul’s face.

Raoul’s mouth twitched. 

“Aren’t you tired of this?” He looked straight at Iason. “When are you going stop messing with our heads?” 

The paler Blondie tossed his head. The ends of his hair started to shimmer and disappear. The tone of his voice was completely sardonic.

“Probably never,” he said as the room exploded. It was as though a glass ball full of bright water had shattered, releasing droplets of illusion everywhere. Everything shook and shimmered, and disappeared into darkness. The sensation of too little atmosphere seemed to make the liquid in Katze’s veins boil along with everything else as it erupted and flew apart, like swarms of bees had decided to crawl through his arteries.

After a few moments, his vision grew accustomed to the darkness. He expected an Abyss, a void, a darkness like that of Tenebrios. Instead, he found himself in a place that was close enough: Raoul’s apartment, for real. This time the apartment looked as it had during its occupation by Lau and the Apheliotrophs, a huge mess. 

Raoul was there, as well. He turned on his heels as close to gaping at the devastation surrounding them as a Blondie ever would. 

“No wonder you knew the place was fake,” was all he had to say about it to Katze. 

Iason was gone. In his place sat the Admiral, a droll expression twisting her mouth. 

“So when you agreed to marry me and crown me Queen of Amoi—?” She started to ask.

“I fully intended to live up to my agreement,” Raoul replied, without as much as a blink. Behind the half-crumbled bar, he found the decanter that had been duplicated in the illusory world, and poured himself a real drink.

“What about him?” Hahna pointed to Katze. “How does he factor in this?”

Raoul sighed, as though the question was too tedious even to contemplate. 

“What about you, Katze?” He took a hefty swig. “Do you want to be the Queen of Amoi?”

“Not particularly,” Katze answered weakly. Although he knew that was a misdirection, that Hahna was wondering about their relationship, he was more concerned at that moment about the Apheliotrophs that were probably lurking in the shadows around them. He stretched his neck in every direction, peering into corners, trying to pierce the darkness to see what nightmares emerged.

Raoul stared. He took a quick glance into the same corners that Katze was trying to see, and told him, “There’s no one in this room except us.” 

“I wasn’t thinking of people in particular.”

“Ah! There’s no other sentient being in this room except us.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Positive. Although I can hear movement in the other room.”

Admiral Hahna pulled a gun from her holster and left to investigate. 

Raoul reached over to a panel of buttons behind the bar. He pressed some keys and slid his fingers over different touch pads. Finally, he closed his fist and banged on the panel. A screen lit up, part of a closed-circuit monitor of the apartment. The entire tower had been wired for security. 

“I’m surprised it works,” Raoul admitted candidly. “I didn’t think there was anything left that did.”

The lens was focused on a Platinum, Serge Renaud. Katze watched as Hahna entered the room and started chatting with him.

“They know each other?” He turned to Raoul.

“I doubt it,” Raoul replied. “They’ve met only twice: once on the spaceport tarmac for a minute, once in this apartment for even less than that.”

“They seem awfully well acquainted,” Katze had become accustomed to feeling suspicious of every encounter, especially those that seemed to be by chance.

Raoul shook his head. 

“You intend to marry her,” Katze began.

“It was necessary in order to secure her cooperation and access the interface.” Raoul explained. “It was her price.”

“Even now?”

“I see no reason why she would change her decision.” 

“She knows that you and I ... that you and me ... that we’re—”

Raoul waited for Katze to finish. When silence fell, Raoul explained further, “She wants a position, a title, something that will give her more leverage than she had as the leader of a group of pirates.”

“Just exchanging one group for another, is she?” For the first time ever, Katze made a joke. “Are you sure that’s all she wants?”

“Ssshh, watch and see,” Raoul pointed to the monitor where Hahna and Renaud had engaged in an animated conversation. 

Katze heard Serge say, “I guess now that Raoul’s phasing out the Pet trade, they’re going to have to find another form of release.”

“Raoul prefers men, anyway.”

“A lot of Tanagurans do. A lot of Amoians do. There just aren’t that many women around in case you haven’t noticed. Amoi isn’t too good to them.”

“Raoul could have his pick.” Hahna looked bored. “He just prefers men.”

“Right, there’s that also. If it’s any consolation, there never would've been any crown princes or princesses in your future. Blondies are completely sterile.”

“They are?” She turned, picked up a strand of his long silver hair, and played with the wave at the end of it. “You are?”

He, in turn, tucked a finger under her chin and tilted it up so that they were looking straight at each other. “I’m not a Blondie.”

His meaning was unmistakeable.

“Oh!” She said. 

Then she shook off his finger, “Some mother I would make: jetting around the Outworld Sector, planning operations, commanding my fleet with a baby hanging off my breast. Not to mention what to do when the nappy needs changing in the middle of a raid.” 

“I’m getting ridiculously tired and bored of this Port Authority business anyway. It is getting time for a change of career.”

“Is that so?” She parked a hand on her hip. “So you figure you can just take over the Kressellian fleet, is that it?”

“Actually I was thinking more of serious time in the childrearing business. I can’t help out with the breast part, but I’m probably capable of changing a diaper. Or I would be with an appropriate demonstration or two.”

“Renaud, you’re a nice person but—”

“Oh, no! The kiss-off of death.”

“Hunh? What I was going to say is that we hardly know each other.”

“True enough, but I think we’re off to a good start, don’t you?”

“Besides, I’m a Tenebrian Priestess. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“No,” he pulled his hair out from between her fingers where she had started to worry and pick at it. “You’re not.”

“Yes, actually, I am. Raoul was a second away from putting a bullet in my brain when he found out.”

“If it was true, he wouldn’t have stopped himself from putting a bullet in your brain. Therefore, it can’t be true.”

“You have the most fascinating leaps of logic.” She shrugged. “It isn’t my job or my problem to convince you.” 

“You forget I’ve met a real Tenebrian Priestess … was hailed and propositioned by her … denied her … fought her—or, well, launched fighter ships at her in our defense rather. You’re not one of them!”

“No, I’m worse. I’m what Raoul calls “a Manchurian Candidate.” It seems I’m carrying some sort of Priestess Creating time-bomb in my head that only needs the right trigger to set it off. Then— _BOOM!_ —one full-scale hive-mind-connected Telepath gumming up the machine, right in the thick of things. So, not only am I a latent Priestess, a Priestess in the making, with no knowledge of what could set me off, but I’m a living threat to everyone I know and care about.” 

“Yes, Raoul did mention that to me,” Serge admitted. “He also told me that he figures the threat was most likely curtailed when he refused to use the mind-wiping mechanism to restore your memories. The odds of anything else having the power to set that off are astronomical. Short of coming up against another Priestess with the hive-mind technology, that is.”

“As someone trying for the first time in her life to be a nice person, I don’t know that it’s a risk I want to take.” 

“In that case, niceness is highly overrated and I assure you that the rumours of my own niceness are grossly exaggerated. I have only enough nice in me to do whatever it takes to win you all to myself, and the rest can just go screw themselves. I’m quite a selfish bastard, really.”

“Are you asking me to—?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

She thought. She considered. She squirmed around a little. 

“I suppose it’s a possibility,” she finally admitted. “A better one than before, anyway. You don’t need a commitment right this very second, do you?”

He thought about that for a second. “Would you give me one if I said yes?” 

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. How about a date then? Would that be stand-offish and noncommittal enough for you?”

“I think that would be a start.”

“We can’t drag it out too long, though. This planet is a bad place for women. Eventually, as in “very soon” eventually, we would have to move off it.”

“Oh, I see.”

“How about your fiancé? Are you planning to let him know?”

“Do I have to?”

Serge gave a nervous laugh. 

Raoul flipped the switch to turn off the monitor. He looked over at Katze who seemed a bit stunned over the pace at which everything had proceded.

“Sometimes things have a way of working themselves out,” he shook out his mane, “without us having to take any action on our own behalf.”

Katze wasn’t quite ready to agree that things had been worked out. If anything, he was willing to set aside his issues with Raoul for the time being. 

“Do you think we’ll be that lucky with Jupiter and the Apheliotrophs?” He asked.

As Raoul started walking out of the ruins, he barked out a laugh.


	15. World Ends

Paviter unlocked the safety mechanism on his gun, and held it ready.

Rubble choked the streets. The air over Tanagura was the colour of marmalade and reeked of smoke. Crumbled hulks of burnt-out buildings and half-imploded skyscrapers, many of which still smouldered, posed a constant threat from falling debris as Paviter and Tibór picked their way through the ruins. 

Nor were the hazards entirely from the city’s disintegrating structures. Now that the planet’s power supply was rationed, most of the merchandise which had attracted customers to the once glossy district of Flare was useless, but this didn’t stop roving gangs from looting what remained. The smashed and empty storefronts and garbage left in their wake had been the only signs of life so far. Not a rat or a cockroach scuttled in the debris.

Suddenly, a shout burst to their left. The sound of running feet echoed through the stretch of road. The Car and Furniture turned to watch three men scatter from the storefront of an empty hoverbike dealership. Paviter started to hyperventilate as a couple of monstrous robot-human hybrids pounced upon the fleeing men, one of them plunging from what must have been the fourth storey and landing on its feet unharmed. Hydraulic pinchers gripped the backs of the men’s necks and, within moments, they were lying pressed against the pavement, their elbows pulled backwards almost the point of shoulder-dislocation. Solid metal cuffs were clapped around their forearms, ankles were shackled, and they were hoisted up with agonized cries—one of them hanging limp and silent—to be hauled away.

Soon, all that could be heard was wind hurtling and moaning through the canyons of ruined steel and the creaking of exposed girders. A crumpled sheet of plastic whispered and rolled across the pavement.

Paviter glanced at Tibór’s face, white tinged with green. He chewed his bottom lip to keep from breathing too loudly. The Car knew how he felt. Large as he was, trained and smarter than the average Mongrel of Amoi, Paviter was no match for these unnatural creatures. He reached over and pulled the Furniture into a consoling embrace. Tibór stiffened briefly, then relaxed into the warmth. He saw a weak muster at reassurance in Paviter’s smile.

A huge shadow loomed up behind Paviter. Wild-eyed, Tibór shouted a warning, but it was too late. It seemed that the warmth had attracted their enemies, a heat signature which was distinctively human. They were torn from each other and wrestled face down onto the pavement. Blunt pinchers dug into Paviter’s neck. He kicked and bucked, especially as he heard the sharp cries of pain from Tibór. His chin and cheek scraped across the asphalt and sand, but struggles and cries had no effect. Soon their arms were wrenched back, compelled by an irresistible and inhuman strength. The Car had never felt anything like it, not even at the hands of the Blondies. Their feet were also secured, and they were slung over a bulk of rolling metal with no more regard for their bodies than if they were sacks of dried goods. Paviter could feel Tibór’s chin against the small of his back. The hybrid creature started to haul them away. 

The monsters moved so quickly, it was almost impossible to read where they were being carried. Paviter watched the ground pass under the creature in a blur. The disconnection from their humanity told him everything he needed to know about their situation. He supposed they were being hauled to some sort of processing place, a death camp—not like the legal holding cells of the Onyx police forces where criminals and malcontents waited for mind-wiping, but something even more inhumane. The creature which held them had biological elements which may have once been human, but it was just a machine. He and Tibór were probably going to be reduced to their constituent cellular elements, and there was nothing either of them could do about it. They were outmatched by the speed, power and impersonal will which guided and directed these monsters—a will which had a very familiar hallmark to it.

Paviter had come across it before. He knew this thing. He reached back through his memories grasping at recollection. His memory had never been very good, but the force, impersonality, and inhumanity, it all came down to Jupiter! 

Jupiter was not disabled after all. It was embodied in these monsters.

There came a strange whispering and muttering, however, like wind and ghosts. The ground trembled like a small earthquake, with light crackling and splitting noises. The air filled with ozone. The overpowering hold on his arms was released quite suddenly, and the restraints fell away. 

In between periods of susurration, mechanical thunks and hydraulic whirs, there fell a silence so intense that it seemed Paviter could not only hear the thumping of his own fear-stricken heart but that of Tibór’s as well. He finally dared to lift his head. 

The streets were filled with strange, white fibrous pods like spider nests. Fibers were flitting out of cracks in the pavement and walls around them, and weaving themselves around the hulking shapes. They rustled like snakes. Here and there, he caught a glimpse of a protruding mechanical arm or foot, still whirring, still trying to maneuver only to be caught in hairs so fine, they could barely be seen, yet so strong, they failed to snap even against the robotic strength he had fought so uselessly. 

Tibór whispered, “What do you suppose has happened?”

“I don’t know.” Paviter whispered back and climbed to his feet. “But those things look like the stuff that came out of Raoul’s pianoforte.”

“Do you think it will come after us?” 

Paviter’s jaw stretched into a mirthless grin. His heart thumped like a caged animal. He didn’t want to consider what could happen to them, but felt it necessary to move. As long as they stood frozen while these mysterious cobwebs stitched the monsters to whatever solid thing they stood by, they existed in uncertainty and terror. The only way to find out for sure involved risk. 

“I don’t think we’re in danger,” he whispered back, “for no other reason than that the fibres haven’t tried to attack us yet.”

He helped Tibór the rest of the way up, and murmured, “This reminds me of the night when Flare burned, the way the flames were put out. It happened this suddenly and thoroughly. Raoul must’ve been playing the pianoforte again. I’m sure this is his doing.”

It was as though a tight band of anxiety that had been constricting his head and heart started to loosen. For the first time since Hilarion Fyss’ body had been retrieved from the Eos Tower’s incineration chute, Paviter felt as though everything was going to be alright.

“What should we do now?” Tibór kept whispering. 

The Car breathed noisily and deeply and let out a loud, forced laugh. He swung his arms around as though taunting and daring whatever intelligence resided in the fibres and pods. Nothing happened.

“We should go back and see what’s going on.” He turned on his heels and started walking toward Eos Tower.

They were almost back in Eos when they spotted Katze, standing in front of the tower’s main gates, his back turned away from them. His shoulder-length and untidy hair rippled in the wind like flames. He was surveying the fibrous lumps which had risen like cancers from cracks in the pavement and buildings. The sun blazed hot and bleached over the bombed-out Tanaguran towers. Now that streets were filled with bizarre lumps which had once been Apheliotrophs, Katze expected very few people would dare leave their hiding places. This was how the Car and Furniture were able to approach him without being noticed. 

Paviter plunked himself down onto a cement barricade, pulled Tibór beside him, and slung his arm over the Furniture. For a moment, Tibór struggled, but when he looked at the Car’s face and saw the determination there, he snorted once and gave up. 

“It looks exactly like that Holostream Recording of Thallë,” Katze murmured.

“This happened before?” Paviter’s voice rumbled behind him. Katze turned, gave a quick double-take, then schooled his expression.

“Not exactly,” he amended. “Raoul stopped ... some of it, I think. It doesn’t seem to be interested in us, anyway. Were you there when this white stuff happened?”

Tibór nodded, and described in his gentle voice how the hybrid cyborgs-human creatures had made their appearance in one moment and were almost instantaneously suppressed by the threads the next. 

Katze’s brow wrinkled. The time period which had elapsed confused him.

“Raoul and I were gone for days and days.”

“Tibór and I left Eos less than two hours ago.” Paviter tugged the Furniture even closer to him, a statement of sorts, although Katze wasn’t sure what it was about; he had gotten the message the first time. They were a couple. “That was just after Raoul jumped into the black ... that cube thing which Admiral Hahn rigged up—”

“The interface?” 

“Yeah, that.”

“My sense of the progression of time and space has been completely thrown off.” Katze muttered more to himself. The air which licked at him was dry like an oven. Beads of perspiration formed and almost immediately evaporated. It had to be uncomfortable to stand there in the middle of the street under the sun’s full onslaught, but Katze remained and spoke in a soft, bewildered, almost child-like, tone, “So many other things happened while we were in there. There was the whole second moon, the audience with the High Priestess, and then, me and Raoul—”

Paviter unhooked his knee, and drew his foot against the grit on the street with a loud scraping sound. It worked in that it startled Katze back to the present. 

Even though the Car and Furniture had just hooked up, they looked like an old married couple, like their connection had been there all along. Tibór’s head leaned against Paviter’s shoulder. His hands were now draped around the bigger man’s waist. 

“Still, it looks like some good came out of this.” Katze smiled, as though ridiculously happy for both of them, but his eyes looked sad and his voice seemed wistful, even a bit envious. He reached up to his ear, reflexively, like an old habit, and tugged on the pet ring. The cuff that had been clipped to it sprang open at his touch. He stared, aghast, as it fell to the ground and rolled a small distance from his feet. 

Pet rings weren’t supposed to do that. Their removal always meant permanent damage. For the cuff to simply fall off like that meant— 

Katze reached down, plucked the silver ring from the road, and held it to his mouth. “Hello? Raoul, are you there? Raoul!”

There was no answer. 

“Excuse me,” he ended his conversation with Raoul’s servants, turned on his heels and strode quickly and purposefully back into Eos Tower. 

“Do you think we should follow?” Tibór asked Paviter.

“I’d give it an hour or two.” His partner replied. His eyes swept over Tibór and darkened. “Or three.”

Raoul was sitting at the Holocaust Piano, hands at rest. Even though he wasn’t touching the keys, a strange sort of music came from the instrument. Not the distinct rippling sounds which happened when the hammers struck the strings, but the humming sound produced when the strings vibrated sympathetically to movement in the atmosphere. It seemed there was a lot of movement. When Katze ran into the room, Raoul rose to his feet.

“There you are,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

Katze launched himself at the Blondie. It was like hitting a solid wall. 

“Is this how you were going to tell me?” He raged, pounding the stone-firm muscles with all his force. It had no more effect than if he had been an insect. “Disconnect me? Close me off? Did you really intend to leave me on Von?”

“What are you talking about?” Raoul’s hands were massive and strong. As they closed around Katze’s wrists, the eunuch suddenly remembered how Guy had lost his arm. Though still white with rage, he stopped trying to kick and punch the Blondie. 

The pet-ring felt so small and insignificant in Katze’s hand, he almost thought he had lost it. He had to unfurl his fist to see if it was still there. It glinted in the hollow of his palm like a quartz crystal.

“You thought I had set you free.” Raoul’s voice was quiet and calm, not the least bit affected by Katze’s tantrum. 

Katze had no idea what to say. It almost sounded like that had not been Raoul’s intention. He stood staring at the ring.

“Well, I have,” Raoul confirmed. “This isn’t to say I don’t want you to return to me.”

Katze stared back, confused. His mind was too agitated to make sense of what Raoul had just told him. 

“Do you really think you’ve disappointed me, Katze? It seems to me that you’ve always been the one consistent thing I’ve been able to rely on since the Holocaust Piano first intruded on our planet.”

Katze’s confusion cleared instantly. He picked up the burnished metal cuff and set it in Raoul’s palm. Then he swept the hair off his cheek, exposing his scar and ear. 

“Put it back,” he commanded. 

Raoul had correctly guessed what would happen after his conversation with the Tenebrian High Priestess. Once the Cult learned that it was not the human population of Amoi which posed a threat to Tenebrios, she merged the full field of her consciousness with Jupiter’s artificial intelligence lodged in holographic form within the Apheliotrophs. 

Firstly, each of these creatures was held captive within fibres that had issued from the Holocaust Piano. The fibres had infiltrated every transmission system in Amoi but the antiquated power grid from the Hauravon Gulf, such an intricate spiderweb of filaments that the Apheliotrophs had no means of avoiding them. Jupiter’s intelligence was trapped and neutralized this time in a circular loop with the hive-mind. The conscious intelligence of the Priestess Cult was able to neutralize every adaptation Jupiter attempted. 

In time, the Apheliotrophs were secured long enough that their biological components died and disintegrated. In this manner, Lau’s prediction that the Underworld would turn into a charnel house came true. Colin Venables, the Blondie who had overseen the redirection of Hauravon’s power supply to the Underworld, disconnected the machine parts from the grid, so that they became useless hunks of metal. It was about this time that the priestess who had occupied Jupiter’s Tower succumbed to the same illness that wiped out most of the women unfortunate enough to live on Amoi. The fibres which had stitched the Apheliotrophs to solid matter disintegrated and fell away. The machines were scrapped.

The social network of genetically enhanced and altered Elite was enough to keep the operations of the planet functioning. It took a long time for the atmosphere to purify, and the city to be rebuilt. There were many deaths from pulmonary infections and asthma. Pets were too simpleminded to help out much, but with the moratorium on their production and on genetic mutation research which had created the monstrosities under Guardian, resources were no longer being diverted from crop production under Herbay. At least everyone had enough to eat. 

The second moon did indeed turn out to be made mainly of ice. It was labour intensive to ship ample supplies back to Amoi, but proved to be a fairly lucrative business for the Kressellians and for Florian Von, who traded his status as a diplomat to space-port harbour master. It also allowed Renaud and Hahna to remain near Amoi. 

One day, when Raoul went to visit them, Katze took the opportunity to pay a call on his old friend, Merc, at the smuggler’s holding cell. The cell turned out to be Hilarion Fyss’ apartment, the most luxurious on all of Von, even surpassing Florien’s quarters.

“At first we would only get together because we didn’t know anyone else on the moon,” Merc explained, while he and Katze shot a game of pool together. “Nobody was too keen on Fyss because of his scars, and I was a Mongrel, so they weren’t too hip on me neither. So we’d get together to shoot the breeze. Then it turns out we both have this thing for cool furniture, so we decided to go into business together. One thing led to another … and …”

“Oh, no! Don’t tell me!” Katze started to laugh, a great gusting laugh that filled the whole room. Merc would have been offended if he wasn’t so surprised. He had never heard Katze laugh before.

“What? That we’re lovers? Well, get over it because we are. Surprised the hell out of me, but it turns out I’m crazy about the old bigot. And he seems to return the favour, who knows why.”

“No,” Katze gasped, clutching his stomach. “That’s not it.” 

“What? C’mon, Mongrel-boy, spit it out! You’re starting to irritate the shit out of me.”

“You’ve become interior decorators!”

The Federation lost its status as a key supplier of fresh water, biomass and other materials necessary to sustain life on Amoi. It also lost its supply of Pets. When talk of an invasion came through, Raoul was careful to transmit images of the subjugation of Thallë, along with holostream recording of the fibrous pods on the streets of Amoi. The Federation knew he had a Holocaust Piano in his care, since they had been the ones to give it to him. Talk quickly died away and relationships became less needy, less imbalanced. 

The Holocaust Piano and the knowledge of the desire webs continued to bother Katze. From time to time, he heard piano music and would wander into the Hall in search of Raoul. As soon as he entered the room, though, it was clear that no one had been playing it. 

"Are you lonely?" He asked it once, but couldn't hear or see any corresponding imagery or sounds in his mind the way Raoul could. Raoul still insisted that the pianoforte was a living creature and had to be treated with the utmost respect and kindness. 

“Do you ever wonder if any of this is real?” Katze asked him, as they soaked together in the Blondie’s heated pool one night. 

“No, why?”

“It doesn’t bother you that this might be a mindgame?” Katze felt Raoul’s fingers tug at the corded muscles in his shoulders. They gently kneaded and rubbed, slowly melting away the stiffness. 

“No.” 

Katze craned his neck around to look at him. “You realize that it’s at times like these that I’m especially sure you’re an illusion. I can’t believe Raoul Am, ruler of Tanagura’s Elite, would not unleash the full fury of his Blondie Pride at the—mmph.”

Raoul’s hand slipped over his lips.

“Do you really object to the way things have turned out?” He murmured in Katze’s ear.

The redhead took all of twenty seconds to think about this before his arguments melted away and Raoul found a better use for his hands.

_—fin—_


End file.
